BHUBANESWAR: The State Government is all set to empower doctors and paramedics at community health centres (CHCs) along National and State highways with trauma care skills for dealing with road accident victims.
Nearly 700 frontline medical staff including doctors, nurses and paramedics posted in around 136 CHCs that fall in the vicinity of the NHs and SHs will be trained in critical lifesaving skills for handling victims of road accidents and other mishaps without resorting to blanket referral to higher centres.
The objective is to equip each and every hospital along the major roads in the State with basic trauma care services so that road accident cases can receive prompt treatment and care, saving many lives in the process. The first hour in road accident cases is called golden hour and a vast majority of victims can be saved with lifesaving interventions. Due to lack of facilities and trained manpower, cases with serious injuries are referred to tertiary care centres instantly and thus by the time they reach there, many lives are lost.
“The plan is to extend trauma care network to primary healthcare levels where doctors and paramedics can make basic lifesaving interventions like resuscitation, bleeding control, stabilisation of patients before referring them to higher centres. As many as 136 CHCs fall along the highways and major roads. Five medical personnel including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technicians from each hospital will be trained in basic trauma care so that they can handle emergency situations,” State nodal officer PKB Patnaik said.
The State Health Department in association with AIIMS Bhubaneswar has developed a two-day training module from last year. In the first phase, the DHHs and sub-divisional hospitals (SDHs) have been included with training of seven members comprising doctors, nurses and paramedics from each. Till date, more than 220 personnel have been trained and 21 DHHs covered along with 12 SDHs. The rest eight districts and 15 SDHs will be completed soon.
According to NCRB data, every day, at least 10 persons die in road accidents in the State and more than half could have been saved if they were provided with prompt lifesaving treatment or care.
The State Road Safety Council, meanwhile, has directed the Health Department to strengthen the existing trauma care centres at the three medical colleges and five districts while starting three more at Balasore, Khurda and Sundargarh.