More beds to care for rise in brain-damaged drinkers

More beds are to be made available in the Capital for the growing number of people who suffer brain damage due to excessive drinking.

A 12-bed extension is being built at the Forthland Lodge elderly care home, in Alemoor Park, Restalrig, for Korsakoff's Syndrome patients and other victims of chronic alcohol abuse.

The unit will also cater for people with other kinds of brain injury or disease, but it is the growing alcohol-afflicted element that has convinced the council more beds need to be provided.

The city council will pay £212,000-a-year for six of the beds with the option to rent out more as and when they are needed. The first patients will be admitted next month and applications for places are already flooding in.

Jim Fulton, general manager of Meallmore, which runs nursing homes across Scotland, including Forthland Lodge, said: "This facility is required in Edinburgh, there is a desperate need for beds here. At the moment a lot of people are placed outwith the city because there is not the capacity here. This will help keep them in the city and so is important for relatives. At present people have to travel as far afield as Aberdeen and the Highlands.

"We are getting some referrals already, and some of those people have Korsakoff's Syndrome. Anyone who is admitted to the home will need 24-hour nursing care and the majority will be long-term residents."

Members of Action on Alcohol and Drugs Edinburgh have been warning about the growth of Korsakoff's sufferers for years.

The severely debilitating and potentially fatal disease used to affect only a minority of men, typically in their 50s, who had been drinking heavily all their adult lives.

However, over the last few years patients have become up to 20 years younger – meaning they are doing as much damage in half the time – and binge drinking culture has been blamed for the growth.

Today Tom Wood, chairman of the action team, welcomed plans for additional beds, but warned the problem needed to be tackled at its source.

"Suffering alcohol related brain damage such as Korsakoff's Syndrome is, quite honestly, one of the most desperate consequences of long-term excessive alcohol consumption, short of death," he said.

"A designated unit which allows patients to be properly looked after is a positive step in our actively addressing Edinburgh's problems with alcohol.

"Ultimately though, we must turn around our culture of excessive drinking. Otherwise, we will be looking at the need for more, not less of such units in the future."

It is the not the Capital's first care home for people who have suffered brain damage due to excessive drinking. There are already 20 beds at Jericho House, in Lothian Street, while Thorntree Street has a further 12, meaning the total is set to rise to 44.

Councillor Paul Edie, the city's health and social care leader, said: "One of the council's key objectives is to develop care facilities for people who have alcohol-related brain disease, such as Korsakoff's Syndrome, and the opening of this specialist unit is a significant move in the right direction. The demand for this type of care is high as the number of people affected by these diseases continues to grow."

Scotsman