THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Murukan’s tragic death because of denial of treatment has raised serious questions about existing trauma care facilities in the state.
On an average 11 persons die and 120 sustain grievous to minor injuries in road accidents in the state daily. While road accidents including fatal ones have increased manifold over the past few years, the facilities in trauma care centres and casualty wings of medical colleges have remained abysmal.
The government medical colleges at Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Thrissur, Alappuzha,Kottayam and Manjeri are facing a host of problems including shortage of doctors, anaesthetists, nursing staff, equipment, ventilators, resuscitation facilities, CT scan, X ray units and space crunch. On an average 700 to 1000 patients including accident victims are brought to the casualty of these medical colleges daily.
Most casualty wings are having limited number of ventilators. With private hospitals charging Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 per day for ventilators, a large number of patients are rushed straight from accident sites to the medical college casualty wings.
The absence of full fledged orthopaedic operation theatres in medical colleges is also adding to the woes of trauma patients. In view of the increasing number of accident cases, the state government had recently decided to modernise and redesign trauma care centres in medical colleges following the guidelines set by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
While a team of expert from AIIMS had visited Thiruvananthapuram medical college casualty a couple of months ago, similar visits are being planned in other districts.
New trauma care centres will have centrally air conditioned space with centralized distribution of gasses and vacuum, emergency room equipped with shock bays, AITS, ACLS trained personnel and advanced resuscitation equipment.
Besides, steps are being taken to install 1.5 telsa MRI and round the clock digital radiography and CT scanners.
The operation theatres will be upgraded with laminar flow and advanced equipment, more neurosurgical ICU with adequate bed strength and high end ventilators. All these measures are expected to bring down the high rate of mortality and morbidity in accident cases.
The most critical part of trauma care treatment is to provide timely support to accident victims. If a patient is brought to the hospital within the golden hour, the chances of mortality can be brought down by 85 percent.
Experts say trained staff and mobile ambulance fitted with oxygen sets and resuscitation gear are needed to start life saving activities right at the accident site.
"These facilities are crucial for safe transportation of badly injured patients and to bring down fatalities. Even minor issues clearing food particles left in the mouth are to be taken care of to ensure availability of oxygen. Hypoxic brain damage due to the non availability of oxygen is one of the major causes of death in such cases. Bleeding due to injury is another major problem. A thigh injury could cause blood loss of up to 45 ml creating life threatening situation," said a doctor.
