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Experts have warned that urology departments across the UK could be close to breaking point as ketamine-related hospital admissions have “skyrocketed” in the past few years.
Ketamine, a class B dissociative drug used for pain relief and sedation, is increasingly used recreationally in the UK. It is one of only three drugs, alongside magic mushrooms and hallucinogens, to have become used more regularly since 2015.
Recent data from the Office for National Statistics shows that ketamine usage, while down slightly from the previous year, is still high. The numbers who say they have used the drug in the past month has increased by 251.85% since 2015, the greatest increase in the use of a single drug in that period.
Few places have felt the effects of that increase more than urology departments. Chronic ketamine use can cause irreversible damage to the bladder and urinary tract, and departments have seen an increase in patients, with many of those treated being young adults and teenagers.
Alison Downey, a consultant urologist in South Yorkshire, says ketamine abuse is worse than she has ever seen, with admissions pushing medical centres and hospitals to their limits.
“We’re already stretched really thin as it is and it’s been a massive increase that we’re just not equipped for. Although it causes urology problems, ketamine abuse is not a urology issue, its an addiction and we can’t do anything about that”, said Downey, who has worked as a consultant for more than five years.
“It’s an awful problem at the moment, and the epicentre seems to be Barnsley,” she said. “In 2021, there were 11 attendances in Barnsley A&E for ketamine-related issues, and that was for the whole year. This year, from January to May, there have been 50, that’s a huge increase for just five months.”
Downey believes that ketamine abuse has surged due to a myriad of factors, including how cheap it is. She says most cases they see are also young people who began using the drug as a coping mechanism during Covid lockdowns five years ago.
“Most people I see are in their teens or early 20s, so looking at when they started doing ketamine it largely seems to have been during the pandemic,” said Downey, who pointed out that many who take it are still school age.
“In under-16 drug centres, we’ve heard stories like kids pooling their pocket money together to buy some ketamine and then they’ll just share it,” she said. “They’ll take little, small amounts into the school toilets and take some then, which is absolutely frightening.”
Nadir Osman, a consultant urological surgeon in Sheffield, says that admissions tied to ketamine abuse have “skyrocketed” in the last few years, and that not enough ketamine users understand the effect that consistently taking the drug will have on their bodies.
“Ketamine is a unique drug because it seems like there are no side-effects, but its more complicated than that,” said Osman. “It slowly impacts the bladder and the liver, and then the urinary tract. It takes a couple of years to begin to notice these effects, but once you start noticing them they’re pretty irreversible.”
Osman also claimed that some users who are on a list for surgery end up not getting the procedure done due to continuing to use the drug as pain relief.
Prof Ian Pearce, consultant urological surgeon and andrologist at Manchester Royal Infirmary, believes that more needs to be done to warn people, especially those who are still of school age, about the dangers of becoming involved with ketamine while providing help with those already experiencing the effects of abusing the drug.
“One of the main issues with ketamine is that the relapse rate post-rehabilitation is massive, so ongoing support is vital,” said Pearce, who suggested that the government should implement a “targeted educational drive aimed at secondary schools to really get across the message that this is a highly negatively impactful substance with a huge potential for lifelong sequelae”.
