Box Hill Hospital: Christmas Day in the emergency department
December 25 is certainly not a typical day in an emergency department, with an Eastern Health doctor sharing the unusual injuries and incidents he has observed — and how he expects to see casualties from one of the latest crazes this year.
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From the drunk and injured elderly to parents who’ve been shot in the eye by a Nerf gun — emergency department staff certainly deal with the out-of-the-ordinary at Christmas.
Eastern Health director emergency services Dr Peter Jordan — who has spent his fair share of Christmases in Box Hill Hospital’s emergency room — has shared what it’s like being behind the desk.
Christmas morning normally begins much quieter than any other day.
“People will do everything they can to stay out of emergency departments,” he said.
Dr Jordan said people’s reluctance to spend their Christmas in hospital meant a lot of accidents that happened on December 25 were dealt with on Boxing Day.
“There’s often delayed presentations because people don’t want to come in because they’re drunk,” he said.
“Kids with broken arms get shunted in the next day as dad’s sobered up.”
But there are still wounded coming through the doors on the big day.
Dr Jordan said new trampolines had always been a big source of injuries.
“We’ll probably still see a few kids who are very excited on their new trampoline, bouncing off and breaking their wrist,” he said.
This year the emergency physician is expecting to see people who have come into grief riding e-scooters — both adults and children.
He said e-scooters were known among doctors to be “the latest things” causing injuries, with riders coming off them and crashing into each other, objects and cars.
“I want one — but I don’t want to end up in emergency,” he said.
Dr Jordan said “strange things” were also known to happen at Christmas.
“I’ve delivered babies on Christmas Day in the ambulance bay,” he said.
He said a common presentation were the elderly who had enjoyed a one-off drink for the festivities and ended up in trouble.
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“They have a couple of sherries at the nursing home and fall over, and do things they wouldn’t normally do he said.
“They may not have had a drink for 12 months and they’ll find themselves dancing on a table and come to grief.”
Dr Jordan said while a few of the issues around Christmas time could be slightly funny, he didn’t enjoy working in the lead up to Christmas and New Years.
“You see a lot more mental health presentations. That can be quite challenging,” he said.
He put this down to underlying family stress and issues coming to a head, but mental health presentations quickly dropped off once Christmas was over.