CASUALTY departments in hospitals are now feeling the effects of 24-hour licensing.
They are having to deal with a significant rise in alcohol-related injuries which is just what many health experts feared and what A & E staff at the Royal Bolton Hospital face on a regular basis.
It does not take much for some people to turn from happy drinker to savage drunk, with all the loss of inhibitions and acceptable behaviour that this entails.
Of course the buck stops in our hospitals where frontline staff have to deal with the injured and the plain out-of-their-skulls on booze.
They pay the initial price in trying to cope with this increased workload alongside the violent outbursts, but it is you and I who finally foot the bill that this extra drain on health services means.
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