Nearly half-a-million people across New Zealand and Australia are treated in emergency departments for alcohol-related injuries or illness each year.

The results of a study into the effects of alcohol on emergency departments in both countries were presented at a conference hosted by the Australiasian College for Emergency Medicine recently.

Waikato Hospital Emergency Department clinical director Dr John Bonning. Photo: Waikato DHB

The study monitored eight emergency departments across New Zealand and Australia, and were monitored over one week in December 2014.

It found one in eight people using emergency departments were there because of alcohol-related injury or illness.

ACEM's lead researcher Associate Professor Diana Egerton-Warburton says the cost is in the multi-millions and the burden on our staff is phenomenal.

'More than 90 per cent of staff report being physically or verbally assaulted by drunk patients. One drunk person can disrupt an entire ED,” says Diana. 'They are often violent and aggressive, make staff feel unsafe and impact negatively on the care of other patients.”

'The sheer volume of alcohol-affected patients means they disrupt EDs more than patients affected by metamphetamines.”

The study concluded that 8.3 per cent of all presentations in any one 24 hour period would be alcohol related, and this increased to 12 per cent from 6pm to 6am Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Seventeen per cent of the presentations suffered unintentional injury (whilst intoxicated) and 14 per cent had been injured due to someone else's intoxication (such as assaults and motor vehicle accidents).

A TALE FROM THE ED

The sound of heart rate monitors hum rhythmically, oblivious to the sick and injured patients they observe.

It is a Friday night in Waikato Hospital's Emergency Department and staff are systematically moving from one patient to the next.

It is an orchestra of hollow steps on a suspended platform, alarms and quiet murmurs.

But in an instant the rhythm is interrupted – security guards race outside through double doors onto Pembroke Street.

A young man visiting his mate takes off down the hill for a joy-ride in a hospital wheelchair.

He was in ED with a friend whose knee had been smashed in a drink driving accident.

Between the pair they had drunk between up to 40 ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic beverages.

Their story would be just one of many to come through the department's doors as a result of alcohol-related injury or illness.

Some will suffer from extreme psychosis; some will have injuries received from drunken partners and others from drunken pranks gone wrong.

But for a variety of reasons the primary prognosis is not recorded as alcohol but rather the injury treated by the ED.