Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 2 (PTI) The Keralagovernment today decided to draw up a comprehensive traumacare programme to ensure emergency medical assistance for roadaccident victims.
A decision in this regard was taken at a high levelmeeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here.
As part of the initiative, advanced trauma carefacilities would be launched in the government medicalcolleges, district and taluk hospitals and major privatemedical care institutions.
A slew of relief programmes, including meeting theinitial treatment expenses of the accident victims by thegovernment itself is under consideration, an officialstatement said here.
Emergency medical assistance would be ensured to eachaccident victim without charging money from them for the next48 hours after he/she is admitted to the hospital, it said.
"The government will give away the amount foremergency treatment within the initial 48 hours. The plan isto collect the amount back from insurance companiesconcerned," the statement said.
The chief minister would conduct a discussion withvarious insurance companies and a detailed plan in this regardwould be drawn up after that, it said.
"Treatment should not be denied to any accidentvictim, brought to hospitals. The practice of providingtreatment based on the financial capacity of victims shouldend," Vijayan said.
The chief minister also directed the private hospitalsto meet the victims' initial treatment expenses from the RoadSafety Fund.
Specially designed ambulance with advanced facilitieswould be launched to rush accident victims to the nearbyhospitals at the earliest, official sources said.
A separate software would be developed to ensure theavailability of ambulance and to choose the nearby hospitalsand a centralised call centre would be set up to manage allinformation in this regard, they said.
The trauma care facility would be launched usingKerala Road Safety Fund and the social responsibility fund ofKerala State Road Transport Project along with the budgetallocations in this regard.
The secretaries of various departments includinghealth, home, finance, transport and public works areentrusted to implement the programme on a time-bound manner,sources added.
Besides chief minister, health minister K K Shylajaand secretaries of various deparments also took part in themeeting. PTI LGKBN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.