Sir, – The Irish Times editorial on the recent Healthy Ireland survey raises valid questions about the cost of accessing healthcare, noting there is work to do to address this (December 5th).
However, the piece included some puzzling comments about levels of alcohol and tobacco use, claiming these were either stable or declining, and implying they were not a concerning issue. It is certainly true that there is a very welcome decrease in smoking rates over two decades from 27 per cent to 17 per cent but alcohol use is at a very high level (73 per cent) and is rising along with worrying increases in the particularly harmful binge-drinking pattern.
Alcohol is a significant driver of much of the illness that necessitates GP visits and other healthcare. In particular, it is one of the major risk factors for cancer, digestive diseases, cardiovascular diseases and mental ill-health.
Alcohol consumes at least 11 per cent of the health care budget, a figure that doesn’t include GP visits or emergency department presentations. The Global Burden of Disease study estimates that 5 per cent of deaths in Ireland are alcohol related while research cited by the World Health Organisation finds that alcohol costs Ireland at least 2.5 per cent of GDP – that’s around €12 billion annually.
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Given this burden, a preventative approach is needed. A priority in the programme for government must be a dedicated strategy to reduce alcohol consumption, which needs to be coherent across all government departments.
One approach would be to learn from the successes of smoking reduction. Key to that was the establishment in 2002 of the Office for Tobacco Control by then health minister, Micheál Martin. As he noted recently, “it gave us capacity to deal with the issue”.
The same capacity and focus is needed for alcohol – doing this work will reduce the costs of healthcare for everyone. – Yours, etc,
Dr SHEILA GILHEANY,
CEO,
Alcohol Action Ireland,
Dublin 7.