Doctors tired of alcohol damage An inordinate amount of time is spent on alcohol related injuries: Professor Michael Grigg. Surgeons across Australia are urging a change to the nation's drinking culture, saying they are tired of patching up people hurt as a result of drunken violence. They say alcohol is increasingly a factor in the cases of shattered jaws and severed tendons they confront, describing much of their work as focusing on "preventable tragedies." Whether those people being wheeled into operating theatres are victims of their own drinking or other people's, the vice-president of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Michael Grigg, says surgeons were referring to the situation as an epidemic. Sharing his experience: Damien Delgado with fiance Jessica-Anne Whitney. Photo: Heath Missen "Surgeons are now spending an inordinate amount of time on alcohol-related injuries," Professor Grigg, a vascular surgeon and professor of surgery at Melbourne's Monash University, said. As a result of that we have commissioned our own internal report on this issue to guide our advocacy efforts. We expect to come up against the carefully marshalled forces of the alcohol industry. But we owe it to the community to highlight the extent of the damage being wrought by the abuse of alcohol. While surgeons had previously worked with government to introduce legislation around blood-alcohol levels and drink-driving, a vascular and trauma surgeon at Sydney's Liverpool Hospital, John Crozier, said clinicians were now tackling more alcohol-related injury and violence. More than 350 people died in Australia and 14,000 were hospitalised because of someone else's drinking every year, he said. "The tragedy is so much is preventable," Dr Crozier said. Whether harm is occurring through an impulsive act by an intoxicated young person who ends up injuring themselves or someone else, or someone is harmed through an act of aggression by an intoxicated person, the end result can be horrific injuries and death. Every area of surgery was being affected, he said. Plastic surgeons are repairing tendons of youths who get drunk and punch windows. Orthopaedic surgeons are fixing the legs of people who get drunk, then have a fall. The scale of the problem is huge. There was good evidence that explaining to patients the impact of drinking by a doctor or social worker soon after being admitted to hospital leads to a reduction in drinking by the patient for the next 12 months, Dr Crozier said. "We are still playing catch-up, wading within the walls of hospitals to pick up the pieces once the body has already been broken," he said. It would be better by far to prevent the harm closer to source. We need to tax beverages proportional to their alcohol content and reduce the availability of alcohol in the community. I know a lot of people done for drink-driving three or four times In the 900 metres between the bar and his home, Damien Delgado lost his leg. He'd had a few schooners but it was raining and he had his ute, so he and his friend decided to drive the short distance home. Like so many others after a few drinks, Mr Delgado made a bad judgment call. For him, it resulted in his ute being wrapped around a power pole, about 100 metres from the hotel. It took emergency crews 1½ hours to extract Mr Delgado from the wreckage. He almost died. "I don't remember any of it," Mr Delgado, 32, said. The accident happened on December 11, 2008. But it wasn't until after Christmas that I realised I didn't have the leg. My brain was telling me it was still there, but when I reached down one day ... I realised, then, how bad the accident was. He has undergone more than 60 operations since and is still healing. His friend, the passenger, suffered a broken arm. "It's my fault," Mr Delgado said. I can't get angry at someone else. Mr Delgado is talking with schools about sharing his experience with students, because like most young people he once thought "it won't happen to me." "I know a lot of people up here who have been done for drink-driving three or four times, but they keep doing it," he said. Then they tell me they were unlucky to get caught. I think to myself, if you want to know what unlucky is, just look at me. But, really, I am lucky too. I have had excellent doctors along the way and I am very grateful for that.