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Emergency Rooms On Alert But Trauma Care Needs Healing

CHENNAI: There has been a decline in road accident deaths in the state, but ambulances and emergency rooms are seeing more deaths. While ambulances recorded nearly 6,500 more deaths compared to 2018, nearly 100 more people died in the emergency departments of various state-run hospitals.
Since 2016, Tamil Nadu is among the top in the country in road accidents. In 2019, the state counted 10,472 road accident deaths compared to 12,216 fatalities in 2018. During the same period, nearly 40,000 more trauma victims, including 2,650 more accident victims, were taken to government hospitals. While surgeries were done for more than three out of five patients and CT scans were done on two-fifths of the patients, at least 4% of patients admitted required blood transfusion.

One of the reasons why there was increased work in emergency rooms is because many departments in the state worked together with organisations and institutions such as IIT-M to locate accident hot spots, identify faulty road designs and causes for accidents, said transport commissioner S Jawahar said at a meeting in New Delhi recently, where TN was given an award for bringing down accident deaths. Overall, the number of high velocity accidents has also declined in the state, he said.

The state 108 ambulances outsourced to GVK-EMRI picks at least 100 cases of trauma every day from across the state. “Sometimes accident victims are inside the ambulance for more than an hour either because of traffic or because the nearest state facility is that far. Some die on their way to hospital,” said EVK EMRI state head M Selvakumar.

An audit by the health department revealed that more than 70% of accidents happened on 8% of roads, particularly highways, and deaths happened because accident victims were not able to reach hospitals and receive basic first aid. To reduce travel time, the state has set up five seven bed emergency and trauma centres equipped with ventilators, defibrillators and other lifesaving equipment, besides doctors and nurses on duty round the clock. “These centres within 10 minutes of the accident spot acts as a hub before the patient is taken to a tertiary centre,” he said.

At the tertiary care centre patients are given treatment free of cost. They can move to private hospital empanelled under the state health insurance scheme and continue free treatment.

Officials at the EMRI and emergency medicine experts at government hospitals agree that they have to do more to bring down deaths. “As per the protocol, ambulance technicians must alert a staff nurse before arrival. This pre-arrival intimation helps us keep a team ready for the critically ill. On most days we don’t receive any such information,” said a senior doctor attached to Stanley Medical College Hospital.

Senior neurosurgeons say improved trauma facilities, besides saving lives, will improve quality of organs that are retrieved in case of brain death.

The state is also talking to private hospitals to expand its tertiary care network. As of now Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Raja Muthiah Hospital and Saveetha Medical College are a part of the state network.-Times Of India

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