Youth alcohol poisoning rate "worrying"

Fewer young people are drinking these days, but the amount of alcohol consumed by those who do drink is worrying. Dutch organization VeiligheidNL says that the number of young people admitted to hospital for alcohol poisoning has been consistently high over the last years, the Algemeen Dagblad reports. 

Marco Brugmans, director of VeiligheidNL, will present new figures on this statistic at a conference about alcohol, health and policy today.

Young people between 10 and 17 years of age were taken up in hospital 3.5 times more in 2013 than 10 years ago, according to the figures. VeiligheidNL sees no change in this statistic.

Brugmans thinks it's up to municipalities and hospitals to work together more to push alcohol abuse down. He thinks that emergency units can work to spot the signs of excessive alcohol consumption sooner. He also says that these units often know best what is happening on the local level, and whether the problem is increasing or decreasing.

"Where do the young people come from before they land in hospital? Did they get that drunk at home, at the pub or maybe at sporting associations?" This kind of information is crucial, Brugmans emphasizes, for municipalities to be able to impose preventative measures.