It could sound like widespread sense – don’t take a snake to a hospital.
However Queensland well being officers have issued the weird warning after a regarding rise in snake chunk victims bringing the reptile accountable to emergency departments.
Broad Bay hospital and Well being Service is urging locals to cease the alarming development after plenty of folks arrived with a snake in a plastic container in latest months.
In a single occasion, somebody introduced an especially venomous jap brown snake.
The chunk victims had mistakenly believed bringing the snake would assist hospital employees determine the reptile and what antivenom to make use of.
“We aren’t wildlife professionals and due to this fact are usually not skilled to determine a snake even when you deliver it to us,” Bundaberg hospital’s director of emergency drugs, Adam Michael, mentioned.
“Bringing snakes to the emergency division places not solely you but additionally our employees and different sufferers in danger.”
Nearly 100 folks, some victims as younger as one, have been handled for snake bites within the Broad Bay district, north of Brisbane, in 2024.
“We now have seen a number of people arriving with stay snakes following snake chunk incidents, posing severe security dangers to themselves, healthcare suppliers, and different sufferers,” Dr Michael mentioned.
“Such actions not solely endanger lives but additionally hinder well timed therapy.”
Sufferers have been urged to cease bringing in snakes, with well being care staff in a position to determine if a affected person wants antivenom with out viewing the reptile accountable.
“We will decide when you want antivenom, and in that case, which antivenom, through the use of medical indicators, blood assessments, and snake venom detection kits, which now we have on the hospital,” Dr Michael mentioned.
“Makes an attempt to catch or kill snakes put you and others at a lot increased danger of bites.”
Dr Michael urged people who find themselves bitten to maintain calm, keep away from cleansing or transferring the affected space and apply a agency strain bandage.
They need to name an ambulance or get to a hospital ASAP – and keep away from the snake.
“Most snake bites happen as a result of somebody has gone out of their method to work together with that animal,” Dr Michael mentioned.
