Snake bite victims are endangering medical staff by bringing the
reptiles with them to hospital, say doctors in Australia. In
Queensland's Wide Bay region, doctors have come face to face with some
of the world's most venomous snakes captured by patients who believe it
will help medical personnel with identification and treatment. In one
case earlier this month, emergency staff at Bundaberg Hospital, four
hours north of Brisbane, were handed a plastic food container with a
small eastern brown snake inside peering back at them. The incident has
prompted the hospital's Director of Emergency Medicine, Adam Michael, to
warn patients to leave snakes alone. Dr. Michael said the eastern brown
snake brought in earlier this month was not very well secured and was
wriggling around trying to get out. "Any attempts to either get close to
a snake to catch or to kill, or to photograph the snake, just puts
people at risk," he said. "We want people to be able to get seen and
assessed quickly and having a live snake in the department slows up that
process." There are about 3,000 suspected snake bites across Australia
each year, but only 100 to 200 cases require anti-venom.
July 27, 2024
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