Walking straight line, buttoning shirt as drink-drive test

KATHMANDU, Nov 4: Technology has brought much revolution in the medical field, but not for some doctors at Bir Hospital emergency department, where they still use a set of very traditional methods to determine whether soneone is drunk or not.

When someone is brought by police to the country´s oldest and largest public hospital in the heart of the capital on suspicion of drink-driving and the doctors have to make an official report, they start with a series of astonishing techniques.[break]

First they smell the mouth of the person under suspicion, then they examine the redness of the eyes, and next ask him to fasten the buttons of his shirt. If the doctors still remain unsure, they ask the person to walk in a strength line.

After these examinations, doctors can give a simple report whether the person in question has been drinking or not, but without mentioning anything about the amount of alcohol consumed.

"Anyone can say whether a person has drunk or not; the only difference is we have the authority to produce an official report," said Dr Dhurba Singh, chief of the emergency department.

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Dr Singh said that the hospital lacked laboratory facilities to examine the alcoholic content in the blood. “In the absence of proper technology, doctors at the hospital are compelled to produce their reports just on the basis of clinical behavior," he added.

Dr. Singh said the country lacks a law that specifies how much alcohol a person can legally consume. However, police take legal action against alleged offenders on the basis of reports produced by the hospitals.

Each day police bring more than 150 people to the hospital, mainly on suspicion of drink-driving. The hospital has the authority to charge Rs 100 per test but the problem is no one pays the fee and we cannot refuse the service, according to Dr Singh.

Had the hospital been able to charge the fees, it would not have been struggling to acquire modern scientific equipment to produce accurate reports, he added.

Moreover, Dr Singh said that no hospital in the capital has the modern facilities for checking the alcohol level in the blood of motorists. Doctors at all the major hospitals, such as Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) and Patan Hospital, produce their reports just by watching the clinical behavior.