Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey released communication material comprising first aid module for community and handbook on prevention of accidents and awareness of first aid earlier this week on the occasion of ‘30th Road Safety Week’.
“Road traffic injuries are a growing public health issue, affecting vulnerable groups of road users, including the poor. Road traffic injuries place a huge strain on healthcare services in terms of financial resources, bed occupancy and demand of health services,” he said.
The Minister stressed the need for giving medical trauma care to the injured during the first hour of the accident, known as the golden hour for saving the lives of the injured persons. Mr. Choubey said, “Care of injuries after a crash is of utmost importance, as a delay of minutes in delivering care can lead to a life-and-death situation.”
He said that in order to tackle this growing menace, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) is implementing ‘National Programme for Trauma Care’ with a focus on improving pre-hospital, hospital and rehabilitative services for injury victims.
Trauma-care facilities
Under the programme, trauma-care facilities are being strengthened in the existing government hospitals, near the State and National Highway.
During 2017, the total number of road accidents were reported to be 4, 64,910 causing injuries to 4,70,975 persons and claiming 1,47,913 lives in the country. This would translate, on an average, into 53 accidents and 16 deaths every hour, Mr. Choubey said.
He said that 116 government hospitals were identified out of these, 100 trauma-care facilities are fully functional as reported by the States.
The Minister noted that more than 500 pre-hospital trauma technicians have been trained in the three Central government hospitals (RML Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College) of Delhi. A release issued by the Health Ministry said that in addition, advanced trauma life support and basic life support trainings are being imparted for doctors and nurses under the programme.
