Most injuries – accidental or intentional – are preventable, yet are the major cause of hospitalisation and death in Australia, including in Hume and Whittlesea, recent figures show.
Last week, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) released the Injury in Australia 2020–21 report, examining injuries which required admission to hospital, but does not include injuries where a person attended an emergency department without a hospital admission.
There were 1600 injury-related hospitalisations every day in Australia during 2020-21, a seven per cent increase on pre-pandemic figures
The AIHW said the number of hospitalisations rose nine per cent from 527,000 in 2019-20 to 575,000 in 2020-21, with 13,400 deaths due to injuries in 2019-20.
The top three causes of hospitalisation for injury in 2020-21 were falls, contact with objects and transport accidents, which remained unchanged from the previous period.
AIHW spokesperson Dr Adrian Webster said injury hospitalisations from contact with living things in 2020-21 were 19 per cent higher than the previous year, which includes bites and stings from animals, insects and plants, as well as unintentional person-to-person contact, such as playing sport.
“This is likely due to increases in outdoor activity following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions,” he said.
These injuries resulted in 29,900 hospital admissions in 2020-21, representing 5.2 per cent of total injury hospitalisations.
