One in every five patients admitted to the critical care unit in Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital during the lockdown were there because of booze, a top medic has revealed.
Liver consultant Dr John Ryan believes hospitals around Ireland had similar numbers as drinking reached crisis levels during the pandemic.
The Beaumont hospital medic said: “Critical care suddenly became a huge commodity during Covid-19 because a bed in intensive care was potentially for someone with Covid.”
“When we looked at that critical care, there was about one in five patients sitting in critical care (who) were there because of alcohol, which is an absolutely enormous consideration.”
With over half of Irish people drinking harmfully and 7% showing signs of alcohol dependency according to World Health Organisation standards, the consultant hepatologist said many of his patients swig back one or two bottles of wine a night and consider themselves normal drinkers.
Dr Ryan said: “We see people every day of the week who are functioning professionals with children and families.”
“They come home and might have one or two bottles of wine a night, they fall into that unfortunate habit of drinking far too much.
“When you drink that much you are at risk of having advanced liver disease and scarring.”
He added: “Very small amounts of alcohol, like one standard drink a day, increases the risk of breast cancer.”
The Alcohol Health Alliance Ireland chair called for a dedicated alcohol health watchdog.
He said: “We have a cancer programme, we have a heart failure programme and yet the investment in alcohol related diseases has been very poor.
“We need an alcohol office, a sort of statutory office to be responsible for the harms associated with alcohol - rather like the Road Safety Authority, which has been very effective.”
“It stacks up and before they know it they’re coming in with jaundice or with a liver tumour.
“Unfortunately by the time many patients present to us, they’ve gone beyond the stage of repair.”
Speaking last night on Alcohol Action Ireland’s new podcast series, ‘The Alcohol File’, Professor Frank Murray of the Royal College of Physicians Ireland said regular boozing is driving an alarming rise in breast cancer rates amongst Irish women, who are now the world’s seventh heaviest drinkers.
The consultant hepatologist said: “The most common fatal cancer in women in Ireland is breast cancer and it’s been estimated that one in eight breast cancers in Ireland is due to alcohol.”
