KEY POINTS:
Alcohol-related assaults, accidents and injuries kept hospital emergency departments busy into the New Year.
Auckland hospitals coped with an expected influx of alcohol-related admissions after the last night of 2007, and hospitals at holiday hotspots like the Bay of Plenty were frantic.
Middlemore Hospital had 30 admissions yesterday.
"More than half of those were alcohol-related," said Lauren Young, spokeswoman for Counties-Manukau District Health Board, which runs Middlemore.
It also had to contend with two serious road crashes, one on Monday and another yesterday, involving a total of four people.
"Both of those crashes involved alcohol," Ms Young said.
Middlemore's waiting room was still busy yesterday afternoon.
"We've got 18 people in our waiting rooms - 14 of whom have injuries that are alcohol-related," Ms Young said. It was normal for this time of year.
"It is a really busy time - we've got a lot of assaults and non-accidental injuries, people whacking each other I suppose.
"It'd just be nice in this season for people to be kinder to each other."
North Shore Hospital had 14 alcohol-related admissions, ranging from people being punched in the face to fractured arms.
Spokeswoman Bryony Hilless said staff were still busy yesterday with "clean-up" work such as tidying up stitches.
Auckland City Hospital spokeswoman Sneha Paul said the emergency department was busy.
"There were a few people who were drunk, they turned up to the ED but the staff managed to handle them well."
Waikato Hospital, meanwhile, has had a busy holiday season with road crashes - including one yesterday that left one person dead and nine people injured.
Spokeswoman Mary Anne Gill said the four or five alcohol-related cases yesterday was like "an ordinary Saturday night".
"In fact the last week has been pretty low key as well."
The Bay of Plenty District Health Board's emergency department, meanwhile, has been "exceptionally busy", says spokeswoman Carol Wollaston.
The department is seeing about 160 people a day, compared with 100 to 110 outside the holidays.
