Surge in head assault injuries at A&Es
The number of people requiring specialist care for head injuries on Monday mornings has been described as “shocking” by a former consultant at St James’s Hospital, Dublin.
Mr Cliff Beirne said the number of patients needing maxillofacial treatment on Monday mornings in St James’s Hospital when he worked there had led to a significant increase in workload faced by staff.
“On Monday mornings in St James’s, it was just shocking. You could have 15 or 16 cases come in with facial injuries. Unfortunately, the significant majority were caused by assaults,” he told the Irish Medical News.
A number of reviews of the cause of injuries in maxillofacial units in recent years have emphasised the impact violence is having on the health service, Mr Beirne said.
“Assault as a causal factor is now the number one cause of facial fractures. It used to be third. We did a review when I was a senior registrar of the injuries in the maxillofacial unit in St James’s and it has changed. The change went from road accidents being [the] number one [cause of facial injuries], sport number two and assaults number three, to assault being number one,” he said.
Mr Beirne, who now works in the private sector, is not the only person to express concern about the increasingly violent society. Consultant neuropsychologist Mr Salvatore Giangrasso from Headway, has also highlighted the impact assaults have had on the numbers of patients presenting at hospitals with acquired brain injury (ABI).
“The two main causes of traumatic brain injury are either violence or road traffic accidents. I don’t have official statistics, but certainly, especially in relation to alcohol, there’s been an increase in episodes of violence that eventually lead to acquired brain injury.”
The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show there were 2,873 assaults causing harm in the first nine months of 2008.
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