Help For U.K. Alcoholics

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30803, 15 July 1965, Page 15

Help For U.K. Alcoholics

(Special Crspdt. N.Z PA) LONDON, July 14.

Government and industry have been asked to give financial support to a scheme to help the alcoholic.

The request was made at the opening of the British Medical Association’s scientific sessions in London by Dr. H. D. Chalke, who was Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Camberwell, London.

He said alcoholism was the biggest medico-social problem in Britain, and in industry it was responsible for much absenteeism and many accidents.

The doctors approved a resolution asking for a Government grant of £250,000 for research into the subject It said that there should be a health education campaign to

counter “anti-health” advertising by brewers and others on television and called for 30 early treatment centres to give advice to heavy drinkers. It was suggested that local health authorities should take more interest in the rehabilitation of the alcoholic. The doctors accepted the idea that it might be useful to have a senior colleague as a local counsellor to advise doctors when necessary. Doctors, it was said, provided two and a half times the average number of cases of cirrhosis of the liver in the country. Dr. Basil Merriman, the honorary medical director of the Carter Foundation for the Treatment of Alcoholism and consultant on alcoholism at Pentonville and Holloway prisons, described alcoholism as the most neglected disease in the civilised countries. It was “the largest single cause of break-up in homes.

delinquency in children, and minor criminal acts.” There were 400,000 cases in Britain, he said, and probably many more, “but we are only toying with the problem and it is getting steadily worse.”

The “never drunk, never sober” pattern was increasing. Alcoholism was a national challenge needing a lead from the Ministry of Health. Dr. Chalke added that often doctors saw the alcoholic as a hopeless nuisance—but alcbholics could be treated easily if they were people of good basic qualities.