[imagesource: Ashraf Hendricks]

Yesterday, somewhere around midday, the WhatsApp messages started doing the rounds.

Someone had an auntie who had been told that liquor stores were being instructed to cease sales, another had a friend in the upper corridors of the SAPS, there were some connections to the National Coronavirus Command Council…

The booze sales ban was returning on Wednesday, or Thursday, and South Africans bolted to the store and filled their trolleys.

Clearly, we have learnt nothing from the viral WhatsApp voicenote back in March, purporting to be from Dr Diana Hardie, a top expert at Groote Schuur Hospital, and later in the day, presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko said that there had not been any calls to reinstate the ban on alcohol sales.

I know there are many people out there thinking this was a marketing campaign started by the industry itself, and if that’s the case, consider it a job well done.

Behind the fear and fake news, though, is a very real problem, and one that could potentially lead the South African government to reconsider the sale of alcohol at some point down the line.

The Sunday Times feature on the staggering surge of people admitted to hospital emergency rooms with alcohol-related injuries has laid bare how our thinly-stretched healthcare sector is being placed under additional strain.

At a time when we know the worst is still to come, it’s a problem we can ill afford:

Professor Elmin Steyn, Tygerberg Hospital’s head of surgery and the trauma unit, said alcohol plus Covid-19 “massively” reduced access to medical care for others…

Steyn said if people land up in hospital now, their treatment is fraught with risk, with their chances of dying from their injuries much higher, even in cases of preventable death…

Dr Pat Saffy, head of the Helen Joseph Hospital emergency department, said it was overwhelmed this week.

“In a time of Covid-19 that’s dangerous. It means less staff to look after patients who have respiratory illnesses who are possibly infected with coronavirus…People are going to die because there are not enough staff to look after everyone at the same time. With staff becoming infected by Covid-19, it’s going to get worse.”

It’s not a problem unique to Cape hospitals, and in Durban, doctors have also noticed a spike in trauma cases.

One state hospital trauma specialist in Durban said they have seen “an explosion” in trauma cases, calling it “a nightmare” that is directly linked to the sale of alcohol.

Across the country, the numbers tell the same story:

Gauteng health department data shows that between March and May, emergency trauma unit admissions to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital dropped from 819 to 209.

For the same period, trauma admissions at Baragwanath Hospital dropped from 3,761 (an average of 41 cases a day) to 2,715 (an average of 30 cases a day). On June 1 the hospital had 117 emergency trauma admissions, including six gunshot injuries, nine stabbings and 19 assault victims. Saffy said that in the Helen Joseph Hospital emergency department this week, “it was so bad that for the first three nights we had to divert ambulances with trauma patients to other hospitals”…

Western Cape health spokesperson Mark van der Heever confirmed increases in trauma cases at all the province’s hospitals. Tygerberg’s Steyn said this week’s trauma admission increases were serious “as there are knock-on effects for all other medical emergencies”.

Time and time again, right across the country, the spike in trauma-related cases is placing immense additional strain on resources that are already being stretched to, and beyond, breaking point.

I don’t want the alcohol sales ban reinstated (we need these small mercies), but we are clearly a nation that cannot handle our liquor in a responsible manner.

To really understand the pressure faced by those on the frontline, it’s worth listening to CapeTalk’s Refilwe Moloto interviewing Dr Saadiq Kariem, Chief of Operations at Western Cape Department Of Health.

Some quotes from that interview above:

At Groote Schuur Hospital the weekend before alcohol was released, they would’ve seen five to 10 patients per day… the weekend after they would’ve seen about 50 per day… a 10-fold jump in workload! At Tygerberg Hospital, in April 2019 they saw 1400 patients. In April 2020, they saw about 500. We’re almost back to pre-2020 numbers!

…It helps significantly [that the sale of alcohol remains illegal from Friday to Sunday]! Most [alcohol related] homicides come in between Friday to Monday morning… Those homicides have jumped from 10 the weekend before to 32 on the weekend after…

It seems unlikely that there will be a kneejerk reaction from our government, due in large part to the logistical, and legal, nightmares that once again banning the sale of alcohol would present.

However, there are calls for a reinstatement of the ban from certain politicians, such as Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane, who plans on petitioning Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to have the ban reintroduced in his province.

With Dlamini-Zuma battling tobacco industry giants in court, and her reasoning being forensically picked apart, the fear of similar reactions from the alcohol industry will weigh heavily on any decision-making.

What is plain for all to see, however, is the additional strain our hospitals and healthcare workers are placed under due to alcohol being sold.

Amongst all the outrage and fear that spread like wildfire yesterday, that should not be forgotten.

[sources:sundaytimes&capetalk]