BARIPADA:A trauma care centre at Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College and Hospital (PRM MCH) has become the need of the hour for accident victims. Although the MCH was opened last year, it does not yet have the infrastructure and manpower to set up the centre.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare under a scheme ‘Capacity Building for Developing Trauma Care Facilities on National Highways’ provides 100 per cent grants to set up trauma care centres to bring down the number of road accident deaths to 10 per cent by developing a pan-India trauma care network.
The motive is that no accident victim should be transported more than 50 km for treatment.
Currently, there are trauma care centres in SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, MKCG MCH in Berhampur, VIMSAR in Burla and District Headquarter Hospitals (DHHs) in Balasore, Khurda, Bhadrak and Puri.In case of PRM MCH, its administrative building (the old DHH) is 5 km away from NH-18 and the main building at Rangamatia is 2 km away from the highway.
When the MCH was established last year, the Ministry asked the officials concerned to study the possibility of opening a trauma care centre in any of the two campuses. However, they stated that there is no infrastructure and manpower to open the centre now. According to the Ministry guidelines, the trauma care centre should have eight senior resident doctors, six ICU medical officers, four pharmacists and 18 staff nurses. As of now, nine professors, 15 senior professors, 13 associate professors, 36 assistant professors, 22 lecturers and 99 para-medical staff have been appointed in the MCH.
NH-18 passes through Baripada town and the MCH receives 15 to 20 accident victims every day at the surgery and orthopaedics departments. The critical victims are rushed to Cuttack or Bhubaneswar. A professor of the MCH, requesting anonymity, said in the absence of trauma centre, accident victims are admitted to other departments where adequate medical care cannot be extended to them.
MCH Superintendent N N Soren said the Central Government had asked about possibility of opening a trauma care centre in the MCH. However, as there is no facility to provide trauma care at present, the plan has been put on hold.
The MCH was set up over 21 acres of land with an expenditure of `185 crore. It was inaugurated by the Chief Minister on September 7, 2017 and the State Government plans to spend an additional `50 crore for infrastructure development of the MCH.