Chiral Posted November 30, 2009 SOURCE THE head of one Australia's largest emergency departments said his ward was more like a private social and meteorological barometer. He can tell if it is going to be a busy night just by the weather. He can also detect whether a dance festival is in town. And while he is no meteorologist, Dr Gordian Fulde knows just what time of the year it is if his emergency department at St Vincent's Hospital is full of young drunk people mid-week. "I know that if it is stinking hot, if there is a band or dance festival on and it's near summer that the silly season has started and I am going to have a hell of a night," he said. "I know when the Christmas party season is upon us because my Tuesday nights are like Saturdays: I have really drunk people who have done stupid things in my emergency department in the middle of the week." From today, St Vincent's emergency director Dr Fulde will write a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph. The trauma surgery veteran will traverse drug and alcohol issues and other health-related trends he discovers, safety messages and an insight of an emergency department. Dr Fulde has been the eyes and ears of Sydney's streets as he has worked often gruelling 12-hour shifts for the past 26 years. Read his new City Hearbeat column below.. WHAT blew us away was the amount of people who came in after taking the drug GHB or Fantasy, which is very unusual. We had half a dozen very sick young women in resuscitation who had taken it. They were all ladies in their 20s. One girl had the level of consciousness of a dead person and we had to intubate her. Since the Dianne Brimble case - the woman who was found dead in a cruise ship cabin after taking GHB - girls have seemed to stay away from it. Yet these women who ended up in emergency all chose to take it. It was quite an amazing and alarming weekend. It was very hot and there was a dance festival on at Moore Park. We got some very heavy duty fallout from that. My secret hope is that Saturday night's scenario was a one-off and it was a result of someone who managed to get into the dance festival and sell it. There was obviously someone in there selling caps of this stuff and it was cheap, about $20 a cap. It was really scary stuff. We had dozens and dozens of people come through emergency all Saturday and they had all been at the dance festival. What was really alarming was that all of them bought their drugs inside the festival. I am amazed that drugs were so freely available in the venue. Nearly all these people had started drinking before they got to the festival. Some had kicked off about 10am drinking and then kept going all day before they took drugs. What was new to me and what stood out was there were people there at the festival who were selling packets of ecstasy containing four to five pills. I don't know if it's a new marketing system, but they sell them cheaply rather than $30-$40 a pill. What happens is the person who buys them takes them all and they end up in emergency with us. These were normal people. They had normal jobs, some were professionals and worked in offices, others worked in stores. They were your everyday 9-5 people with all levels of income. What is great about St Vincent's Hospital is its location. People who take drugs in crowded places and fall down will be picked up and taken here. But if the hospital was a really long distance away and they had to wait then they would probably die. That's what is really frightening. Some of these people we saw were extremely sick. We also treated a man who is a regular user of cocaine and who attended the festival. He had taken cocaine and suffered a mini stroke, with his left side partially paralysed. He had also been drinking vodka and energy drinks. It was a deadly mixture and the message I want to get out there to people is if they didn't drink too much and then didn't take drugs, too many of them, or mix their drugs then they wouldn't end up with us in emergency. Some of these people stopped breathing. We put them on life support. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ayjay101 Posted November 30, 2009 One girl had the level of consciousness of a dead person I guess that's one way of saying she was unconscious/unresponsive... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Smiling Cloud Posted November 30, 2009 (edited) No, its double speak for dead. Also, if we didn't have people drinking (and smoking) then we wouldn't have emergency wards, or hospitals. Edited November 30, 2009 by Smiling Cloud Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
botanika Posted December 1, 2009 (edited) Also, if we didn't have people drinking (and smoking) then we wouldn't have emergency wards, or hospitals. ...a little bit of a leap there mate Edited December 1, 2009 by botanika Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Teotzlcoatl Posted December 1, 2009 Also, if we didn't have people drinking (and smoking) then we wouldn't have emergency wards, or hospitals. WTF? (Do I start all my posts with "WTF?" now?) Dude people get in car wrecks, fall off latters, etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
