
Alcohol ban good for health-care system amid the Covid19 crisis
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The negative effects of alcohol on society and the health-care system has always been around. It’s just harder to manage and cope with it when we’re going through a pandemic. As the alcohol sales ban is lifted now, the decline in alcohol-related injuries and trauma cases seen in hospitals in South Africa is reversing. Trauma specialists said that during the first two months of lockdown, trauma admissions dropped by 70% at hospitals in Gauteng and the Western Cape. Those declines, according to the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), are now being dramatically reversed. Alcohol is no doubt a threat to public health. Dr Carolyn Lewis, a medical Doctor at Helen Joseph trauma unit says there has been a drastic drop in the trauma cases from assault and accidents.