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Australian hospital staff plead with bite victims to stop bringing snakes to emergency departments (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Snake bite victims are endangering medical staff by bringing the reptiles with them to hospital, doctors say.

In Queensland's Wide Bay region, doctors have come face to face with some of the world's most venomous snakes captured by patients believing it will help with identification and treatment.

In one case earlier this month, emergency staff at Bundaberg Hospital, four hours north of Brisbane, were handed a plastic food container with a small [highly venomous] eastern brown snake inside peering back at them.

The incident has prompted the hospital's director of emergency medicine, Adam Michael, to warn patients to leave snakes alone.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

"If that snake gets out in an emergency department, that becomes a huge a disaster."

Michael said medical staff did not need to see a snake to know how to treat patients.

"We can determine if you need anti-venom and if so, what anti-venom you need based on clinical signs, blood tests and also the snake venom detection kits that we keep here at the hospital," he said.

"We're actually not trained to identify snakes, and so it's not helpful.

"It just puts the staff at risk as well as yourself."