Emergency Department doctors are pushing for national lockouts

Emergency doctors are lobbying state governments across Australia to introduce alcohol restrictions and lockout laws similar to Sydney, the SMH reports.

Half a million people end up in hospital Emergency Departments each year with alcohol-related injuries, new research by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) says. And up to one in eight Emergency cases in the peak period – Friday night to Sunday morning – involves alcohol.

ACEM chair, Associate Professor Egerton-Warburton, told the SMH that lockouts would ease the strain on Emergency Departments, and reduce the number of extreme alcohol-related injuries.

“They are the human tragedies,” she said. “Those are the cases where I’m sitting there at 1 in the morning ringing someone to tell them their son or daughter has a horrific head injury. They are the cases that lift the hairs on the arms of even the most experienced emergency physician.”

Statistics released in April this year showed that assaults in Sydney’s Kings Cross and CBD dropped by up to 40% after lockouts came in, but the number of people out at night had also dropped by up to 80%. Meanwhile, more than a dozen major venues across the city have closed, placing the blame on lockouts and lost customers.

A Queensland parliament committee is currently examining whether the state should introduce a blanket 2am “last drinks” law, ahead of a final vote early next year. In Sydney, the lockout laws are due for a formal two-year review in February next year; a Victorian government spokesperson told the SMH that the state currently has “no plans to introduce lockout laws.”