‘Know your limits!’

WITH just a few days left in the Crop Over season, head of the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is offering words of advice to persons enjoying the festivities: Know your limits!

 

While speaking briefly with The Barbados Advocate recently, Dr. Cheynie Williams noted that alcohol intoxication peaks during certain festivals and Crop Over is one which keeps the A&E Department busy with intoxicated patients.

 

However, she cautioned that there are other health considerations. 

 

“Know your limitations, don’t drink and drive, keep hydrated, wear appropriate clothing and soft wear, don’t put yourself in a position where you are vulnerable and try to keep safe for the season.”

 

She explained that while most persons may refer extreme intoxication to alcohol poisoning, most of the time these incidents are reversible with time and with fluids. “But you can be poisoned to the point of being comatose and you can actually have issues with breathing, you can aspirate and so on... When lay persons say ‘poison’, we would talk about severe intoxication, but we don’t see that that often.”

 

Dr. Williams explained that persons come into the A&E disoriented, drowsy, aggressive; while others might have been involved in altercations or a motor vehicle accident because their response time was impaired.

 

“Persons should not drink to the point where you have lost your inhibitions because that increases the incidents of promiscuous activity and putting yourself at risk for STD. Driving, putting yourself at risk of getting in a severe motor vehicle accident or any kind of accident. Acts of aggression and assault occur when people are intoxicated and not in control of their mental capacity. So it could be the root of a lot of things,” she explained.

 

She also stressed that alcohol should not be sold or given to minors. (JH)