Alcohol-related emergencies expected to test healthcare system as New Year celebrations loom

AS SOUTH Africans prepare to ring in the New Year, healthcare workers are bracing for a familiar and worrying surge — one that comes at a time when the public health system is already stretched thin.

The South African Medical Association (Sama) has raised concern about increased pressure on hospitals and clinics during the festive season, warning that higher levels of alcohol consumption often translate into a spike in emergency admissions.

According to Sama, this annual pattern places additional strain on healthcare professionals who are already operating under difficult conditions. The association says the pressure is expected to intensify around New Year’s Eve, when alcohol-related incidents typically peak.

Sama chairperson Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa said the situation reflects broader challenges within the healthcare system.

“They are facing difficult times because of the alcohol consumption in our country. You’ll understand that we are in one of the countries that are consuming a lot of alcohol especially around this time and this will lead to accidents, it will lead to the overstretching of casualty areas at the hospital and that will cause more problems with health care professionals that are going to suffer burnout with the limited resources they have at the moment,” he said.

The warning comes against the backdrop of a year marked by mounting pressure on South Africa’s public healthcare system. A recent article highlighted how, in 2025, chronic staff shortages, infrastructure failures, surgical backlogs and corruption combined to push the system toward a breaking point.

While government announced limited recruitment and budget increases, these interventions were widely viewed as insufficient to reverse the decline. Central to the crisis has been the growing gap between the demand for medical professionals and the state’s ability to employ them.

Unemployed healthcare graduates, particularly doctors and nurses, staged nationwide protests earlier in the year, underscoring frustrations within the sector. In April, the National Health Council announced plans to recruit 1,650 healthcare workers, including 1,200 doctors and 200 nurses.

That announcement drew strong criticism from the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), which labelled the number of nursing posts inadequate.

“In the face of a nationwide crisis of nurse shortages, this announcement is not only shockingly inadequate but downright insulting,” a Denosa representative said in a year-end assessment.

The union pointed to vacancy rates of up to 28% in provinces such as the Free State and Eastern Cape, while national projections suggest a shortfall of more than 100,000 nurses by 2030.

Against this backdrop, Sama’s festive-season warning highlights how seasonal pressures risk compounding a system already under severe strain.