"Sick of the Drunks"

[whitecloud]

I know everyone's probably hit up adelaidenow to bash on this bad boy already, but for those who hadn't seen it yet...

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/binge-drinkers-put-pressure-on-stretched-ambos/story-e6frea83-1225825689099

What do you guys think ?

[boredmatrix]

fair call

SAAS is having enought trouble getting cars crewed without workload being excessive on weekend secondary to the masses on Hindley street. 

Plenty of clowns with the typical comments pertianing to " it's your job -shutup and do it" 

conversely - these same clowns will also be the first to write to the minister complaining if it takes more than 38 seconds for a car to get to their lacerated finger....

[crashndash]

to some degree the "it's your job ....you get paid shitloads, just do it" crowd are justified, because rightly or wrongly they are legitimate cases (without making the moral judgements on self responsibility). It's a poorly scripted piece from SA Health to drive the anti-binge drinking message which is using the ambulance service to change behaviour..... for me, not the right way to go about it. Whinging to the public about their behaviour seldom changes it.

Having said that, the City and surrounding cars (even those pesky little Sprints)get flogged on the weekends in the CBD and some meaningful relief for them from this I'm sure would be appreciated

[boredmatrix]

I don't think it's so much about the "relief" from this case type as it is sitting back with the knowledge that your grandmother whois sitting on the cold hard floor after her fall for up to (or more than in some cases) an hour before an ambulance gets dispatched to her.

yes - there are justifiable cases where drunks do have to potential to obtund and do need to go to hospital.  All those alleged nurses etc on ADelaidenow complaining about hospitals being dumping grounds for SAAS probably need to reconsider their position from a coronial perspective.  NSW hospitals set up "drunk tanks" - big rooms full of mattresses on the floor and let them sleep it off in a safe environment with some semblence of medical supervision.  Perhaps SA Health isn't being pro-active enough by overloading ED's with this type of patient?

[disOrderly]

We can safely assume you mean we should have a room like that at the RAH. But yes, I will have worked there one year on the 23rd of March and the number of alcohol related cases is truly eye opening. Sometimes it makes me second guess what dream of being a paramedic.

I worked a night shift last night (I'm in bed still wide awake from it) and we had a fair amount of alcohol related cases come through our doors, and it's a Tuesday night!!! We had 9 code blacks in ED and one man was attempting to destroy resus 1 and through a sharps container at a dr. He almost got into the rest of the hospital when security took him down only to have the cops throw him out when they returned. Yes, alcohol was involved (and I suspect some mental illness too).

I honestly think they need to "fine" people who come in due to alcohol/drug related problems. Sure some people might make that mistake once or twice or a teenager who is new to it all might drink too much, but if you come in after an x amount of times you need to pay for wasting our time and resources. And sure paramedics get paid shitloads to deal with it, but Orderlies and nurses don't! (although I am making quite a nice amount of money for my age)

I also don't feel that SAAS uses us as a dumping ground, they only have limited choices as to what they can do with pt's and while I may say something sarcastic like "you bring us all the good customers" I only mean it in jest. Some of the older Orderlies do get sick of seeing it though, just like some of you guys get sick of picking them up.