- Children as young as six are being sucked into a dangerous
drinking culture, with hundreds ending up in accident and emergency departments
after 'binge drinking' on alcopops and lager.
-
- A survey of 50 hospitals around Britain reveals a substantial
increase in the number of children admitted to hospital after heavy drinking
sessions.
-
- One A&E department said that 62 per cent of the children
they saw with drink problems were over the drink-drive limit while nearly
30 per cent were brought in unconscious or close to it.
-
- Another said that during the summer its specialist consultants
and nurses were seeing up to 100 children a week, revealing a 'holiday
syndrome' where children are left to roam the streets with little parental
supervision.
-
- The research will again raise questions about the sale
of alcopops - sweet, fruit-flavoured drinks which have high levels of alcohol
and are particularly attractive to the young. Across many estates and inner-city
areas such drinks are freely available to children of all ages.
-
- It will also increase pressure on the Government to speed
up the publication of its Alcohol Strategy which it first promised in 1998.
A first document, saying how the Department of Health will tackle the problem
of alcohol abuse among adults and children, is now likely to be published
in the autumn and not implemented until 2004.
-
- Alcohol misuse, which leads to violence and self-harm
among children and adults, is thought to cost the NHS more than £3
billion a year in treatment bills.
-
- Last week a separate survey revealed that the number
of young people dying from alcohol abuse had tripled since the 1980s. In
1981, 2 per cent of all deaths among young men were linked to alcohol,
a figure which fell to just 1 per cent for women. By 2001 these figures
had risen to 7 per cent for men and 3 per cent for women, the research
from the National Office of Statistics revealed.
-
- The new survey of children's drinking was undertaken
by the BBC, supported by the British Association of Accident and Emergency
Medicine, as part of a series on the issue for the Six O'Clock News, to
be broadcast this week.
-
- More than 70 per cent of the hospitals questioned said
that the number of children, defined as those under 18, coming to A&E
departments because of excessive consumption of alcohol had increased over
the past five years.
-
- Of those that put a figure on the amount it had risen,
the increase was put at between a third and a half. Some hospitals said
that the number had doubled.
-
- 'We are certainly aware of the large numbers of young
people drinking alcohol in dangerous and excessive ways,' said Kathy Evans
of the Children's Society.
-
- 'Unfortunately this research bears out our experience,
which is that we are seeing more young people getting into trouble with
alcohol. Certainly we are very concerned about the culture of binge drinking
and what that says about young people.'
-
- Evans said that the children being admitted to A&E
departments were clearly those that had the most problems, and that the
issue of underage drinking was probably far more widespread.
-
- She also argued that, although some adolescent drinking
could be expected, drinking to excess from the age of six showed that there
was likely to be something seriously wrong in the child's life. 'They could
be from families which have problems with alcohol and drugs,' she said.
-
- Three-quarters of the hospitals questioned said they
believed that the age of young people being admitted for alcohol problems
was decreasing. One hospital reported treating a child of six, while others
said that the average age of the youngest children they were seeing was
10.
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2003
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- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1028442,00.html
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