Levels of alcohol found in drunk women admitted to the sexual assault unit of a Dublin hospital are often so high they would normally be found only in dead people, the head of the unit said yesterday.
Dr Mary Holohan, director of the sexual assault treatment unit (SATU) at the Rotunda Hospital, said staff were often asked to determine whether such women had been sexually assaulted as they were unable to remember.
There has been a more than fourfold increase in the number of requests for such assessments at the Rotunda since 1998, she said.
"It was suggested that these cases were due to the administration of drugs, especially rohypnol, by the assailant. Toxicology testing has, however, never been positive for rohypnol in Ireland. The toxicology service has remarked to SATU that levels of alcohol in the samples they test for us are only seen in samples from one other source, the coroner's office," she said.
Women who reported their drinks had been spiked "needed to believe that is what happened" rather than accepting that they simply had had too much to drink. "These girls need to excuse their behaviour and we need to get away from that," she said.
Dr Holohan told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, which is investigating the effect of alcohol on hospital attendances, that 60 per cent of females seen at the unit had alcohol taken.
This had not changed over the past decade, she said, but the pattern of alcohol consumption had. "Spirits are consumed at home before going out. Mixed sex groups of young teens drink in parks - the boys beer and the girls undiluted spirits," she said.
Dr Holohan said she had had, for a number of years, great difficulty getting doctors to work on the night Junior Cert results were announced. It would be the unit's busiest night of the year, but following the highlighting of the issue in the media, the situation had changed.
She suggested that shocking TV advertisements, similar to those for road safety, be developed to frighten young people into changing their attitude to binge drinking.
The committee, which will also hear evidence from the drinks trade before making recommendations on what should be done to curb the problem, also heard evidence from accident and emergency consultants from hospitals in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Castlebar.
Dr Chris Luke, a consultant at Cork's Mercy Hospital, emphasised it was "an urban myth" to suggest young people's drinks were being spiked with date-rape drugs. When people told him their drinks were spiked he told them they were spiked with drink, he said.
Over one weekend last month at his hospital, between 15 and 20 per cent of accident and emergency admissions had been alcohol-related, he said.
He advocated the appointment of alcohol specialist nurses in all A&E units to entice those with alcohol problems into treatment. In addition, he said, all patients who were believed to have consumed alcohol should have their blood alcohol level taken so that the State would have up-to-date figures on the extent of the problem affecting hospitals.
Dr Tony Martin, an A&E consultant at Galway's University College Hospital, said a solution to the problem might be to abolish pub closing times altogether to stop people drinking to deadlines.
He also suggested banning stimulant drinks in premises where alcohol was sold. The combination of stimulants with alcohol was, he said, particularly worrying. At one time, he said, people drank and fell over but now, with stimulants added, they could keep going until they got "ossified".
He called for a stricter enforcement of drink-driving laws and suggested Ireland might adopt a position similar to Japan where, if one travels as a passenger in a car with a drunk driver, one can be found guilty of co-operating with the offender.
Dr Colman O'Leary, a consultant at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, said crash drinking among the 12-to-15 age group was a major concern.
He said he recently treated a 15-year-old girl who was in a deep coma within an hour of drinking half a bottle of vodka.
He would like to take pictures of these young people in a comatose state, having soiled themselves, and show them to their parents. Designer drinks like alcopops, he said, should be banned.
Dr Eamon Brazil of the Mater Hospital said the hospital had to deal with about 10 drunk patients a day. Alcohol consumption accounted for up to a quarter of all A&E attendances at his hospital, he said.