This week Balance, the North-East Alcohol Office, launched its biggest campaign to try to change attitudes to heavy drinking in the region. Health Editor Barry Nelson was there.

A FRONTLINE police officer, paramedic and hospital consultant have been speaking out about the havoc caused by the North-East’s heavy drinking culture.

Click here to for more information on Alcohol Awareness Week and to sign the Balance petition

From a drinker in Darlington who was killed by a single punch outside a pub, to a young man who almost died from alcoholic poisoning, emergency crews are saying that we have to call time on the weekly madness that turns many of our towns and cities into no-go areas.

They all give their graphic testimony on a video posted on the website of Balance, the North-East Alcohol Agency.

All of them are speaking out in support of Balance’s Enough is Enough campaign, which is featuring in press advertisements, bus shelter posters and on the group’s website.

The campaign aims to help change attitudes and make heavy drinking less acceptable in the North-East.

One of the most shocking stories is told by Sergeant David Kirton, from Darlington Police, who tells how a row between two couples who had been drinking in the town led to one of the men being killed by a single punch.

“They guy was dead on the pavement by the time we got there. He was dead from one punch,” says Sgt Kirton.

He also talks about seeing a women drinker with her face split open and “her eye virtually hanging” out after she was caught up in drink-related violence in Darlington.

He said: “We had a youth totally comatose a few months ago. The paramedic had to resuscitate him with a defibrillator.

He was, to all intents and purposes, dead until the paramedic brought him back.”

Richard Ilderton, team paramedic leader with the North- East Ambulance Services, said he was sick of “picking up people who have drunk themselves unconscious” when he could be helping elderly patients who are in pain. He said: “These people don’t know when to stop drinking or when to take responsibility for their lifestyle.”

Mr Ilderton said he frequently saw up to six emergency ambulances parked up near known hotspots such as The Gate and the Bigg Market, in Newcastle.

“That is a lot of resources tied up, picking up people who have drunk themselves unconscious, people who have fallen over or been assaulted.”

Kate Lambert, a consultant from the Emergency Department at Sunderland Royal Hospital, gives a recent example of a very drunken male patient brought in for observation who spat on the floor, then urinated on the trolley he was on then vomited “a large amount of liquid”.

She added: “Eventually he was asked to leave the department.

He ignored this request and police were called to escort him away.”

Dr Lambert says the patient took up the valuable time of two doctors and two nurses.

“During that time you might have a patient waiting with a heart attack or stroke and that is very frustrating,” she said.

Dr Lambert says some people, particularly the 18 to 24 age group, think it is funny to get drunk to the point of being incapable.

But she says this kind of behaviour has a real impact on the way that hospital emergency department staff can deliver care to other people.

David Messanger, Alcohol Health Education Team manager for the North-East Council on Alcohol (NECA), says problems caused by excessive alcohol consumption are constantly being raised by people living in South Tyneside, Gateshead and Sunderland.

“It can make people feel less safe, it can involve crime being committed, car windows smashed, vandalism – it happens across the whole of the region.”

The general look and feel of a community can be adversely affected by a small group drinking heavily, he adds.

Rachel Green, Durham Police’s Strategic Warden for Domestic Abuse, says that of the more than 11,500 reported incidents of domestic abuse, half were alcohol related.

“It sometimes makes the perpetrators and the victims difficult to dealt with,” she adds.

Far from getting any better, Ms Green says she believes things may get worse and the number of domestic abuse incidents are expected to rise.

“It is probably going to increase – I can’t see that changing.”

One of the problems is the sheer normality of drinking for many people.

“Alcohol has this massive acceptability to so many people,” she adds.

Balance is calling for an end to the second-hand harm caused by excessive drinking and the mayhem that breaks out across the region every weekend. The group also wants to see a curb on alcohol advertising to shield young people from being exposed to glamorous images associated with drinking. It is calling on people to visit balancenortheast.co.uk to sign a petition calling for tighter regulation of alcohol advertising.