A medical expert says high drinking levels during lockdown caused a 30% rise in hospital admissions for liver disease.
Professor John Ryan is from the Beamont hospital Hepatology unit.
He says admissions jumped in the first five months of the year.
So that's compared to the same period in 2020.
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He says the problem was caused by a rise in alcohol consumption.
"Thats definitely seen in other centres too."
In the Mater they’re seeing the same thing."
In the states they’re seeing the same thing."
"This is what, 18 months, on from the original lockdown?"
"So it’s kind of coming through."
"I know at lot of this is related to alcohol."
"Silent Killer"
Professor Ryan says liver disease is a "silent killer," which is tricky to detect until it's too late.
"You know you wouldn't know necessarily that you had any liver problems."
"Even if you had cirrhosis where your liver irreversibly damaged."
"You may not even know that."
"So the GP looking at you, or doing your blood tests every year wouldn't even know that either because often they're normal.
He says that is, "until you kinda fall off your perch, or the edge where you become yellow in the eyes, or jaundiced or you've fluid on the belly, called Ascites, or there's an internal hemorrhaging."
He says those "extreme complications" are how patients present.
"The associated mortality is very high. That's the problem."
"People with drink away without really knowing what's going on internally, until it's quite advanced."
More information and tools to help you drink safely are available on the HSE website.
