Alcohol ban: Dr challenges SAB to treat victims, highlights struggle
- While the liquor industry baulks under the strain of the lockdown restrictions, doctors are sharing the view from their side of the Covid-19 crisis
- One doctor insisted that medical professionals are drained from treating citizens amid the pandemic
- He challenged the sector to treat patients themselves should the legal bid to overturn the ban succeed
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Dr Mike Mikia Ramothwala, Senior Clinical Manager for the Limpopo Department of Health, has weighed in amid the uproar over the alcohol ban.
Source: Twitter
Taking to social media, Ramothwala shared heartbreaking images of exhausted frontline workers.
The doctor highlighted that medical professionals are under immense strain as the pandemic rages on:
"Doctors and nurses are emotionally and physically exhausted from treating COVID-19 patients."
Ramothwala insisted that should SA Breweries win its legal attempt to overturn the ban, the company should come and witness the effects first hand:
" If SAB wins its battle to lift the #AlcoholBan they must come and also treat the alcohol-related trauma cases because we currently don’t have the energy to deal with two pandemics."
In response to this eye-opening post on the hardships facing those tackling Covid-19, many other professionals shared their experiences:
@Kelle938: "Lab workers are also expected to work over 12 hours, recovered COVID employees sick or not, expected immediately after 10 days, those who lost family members after funeral come help with the workload. Currently not a fav at with because I was expected day I got discharged. We tired."
@Khanibee12: "Honestly this how I felt last week, working in a tent with COVID patients... I was defeated, hopeless. Physically and emotionally drained. What more with trauma cases?"
Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that South African Breweries has opted to challenge the constitutionality of the liquor ban in court.
The group produces the majority of the nation's beer and had attempted to get the government to consider alternatives that could have both limited the spread of the virus and the economic impact on the industry:
“We are concerned about the resurgence of the Covid virus and remain steadfast in our intention to continue to support the government in flattening the curve, but the third ban on the sale of alcohol goes well beyond what is reasonable and necessary to contain the spread of the virus."
An urgent interdict has been launched in the Western Cape High Court seeking to have the ban set aside, with the state given two weeks to respond.
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Source: Briefly News
