Booze-related health bill up by a third in six years

Date Published: 18-Feb-2013

By Dara Bradley

The Health Service Executive West (HSE) is spending well over €4m a year in Galway on treating patients for diseases and illnesses that are wholly attributable to alcohol consumption.

The new official figures, based on data over a six years period, shows that the direct cost of treating patients for ailments that are 100% attributable to alcohol has increased by almost one third since 2006.

The figures show that more than €22 million was spent in Galway’s public hospitals, UHG, Merlin Park and Portiuncula, between 2006 and 2011, on treating patients for illnesses that are wholly attributable to alcohol.

That amount was spent on treating alcohol liver disease, degeneration of the nervous system due to alcohol, mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol, as well as other alcohol diseases directly related to alcohol consumption.

The statistics show that in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, some €4.6 million was spent on treatments of patients wholly attributable to alcohol. That included 528 patients and 735 discharges from in-patients’ departments of the three hospitals. The number of discharges is higher due to the same patients being admitted several times during the year.

In 2006 it cost €3.2 million, in 2007 it cost €3.4 million, in 2008 cost €3.6 million, in 2009 it cost €3.4 million, and it cost €3.5 million in 2010.

The overall cost of alcohol consumption to the health service is grossly underestimated by these statistics, however, according to experts.

Fiona Donovan, Galway Healthy Cities Coordinator, Health Services Promotion of HSE, told the Connacht Sentinel that the true cost of alcohol to Galway is far higher than the average of €3.6 million annually in the past six years.

“The cost is huge. There is a whole raft of other alcohol related diseases and illnesses that are not included in these figures. These statistics do not take into account the cost of treating patients for alcohol related injuries in the Emergency Departments, nor do they factor in the effects of alcohol on diabetes, obesity and mental health. The statistics also don’t include the cost of treating cancers or diseases that might only be partly attributable to alcohol; it only calculates the cost of illnesses that are 100% attributable to alcohol,” said Ms Donovan.

The statistics were released yesterday to coincide with the launch of the new Galway City Alcohol Strategy to Prevent and Reduce Alcohol-Related Harm. It was officially launched by Minister of State for Primary Care, Alex White TD, in Jigsaw Galway.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel