The Health Minister of India Mr. J P Nadda inaugurated the third World Trauma Congress in New Delhi.
The Health Minister stated that it was a matter of pride that India is hosting the 3rd World Trauma Congress (WTC) this year (2016), the first and second one’s being held at ‘Rio de Jenario’ and ‘Frankfurt’.
Shri Nadda stated that he believed that coming in the middle of the UN Decade for action on Road Safety (2011-2020), the Congress will provide an opportunity for all to assess the lead taken so far and the road ahead.
The congress was organized by the ‘J P N Apex Trauma Centre’, AIIMS New Delhi and co-hosted by the Indian Society for Trauma, Acute Care (ISTAC) and the World Coalition for Trauma Care (WCTC) with objectives to exchange ideas, experiences and lessons learned about the role of internationally accepted systems and protocols in the field of trauma care, mass causality incidents, and disasters.
Addressing the Congress Mr. Nadda pointed out that road traffic injuries are among the three leading causes of death for people between 5 and 44 years of age. Unless immediate and effective action is taken, road traffic injuries are predicted to become the 5th leading cause of death in the world, resulting in an estimated 24 lakh deaths each year.
He noted that road injuries and deaths cause a colossal economic cost of up to 1.5% of the Gross National Product (GNP) in the low- and middle-income countries. The figure for India is close to 3% GDP.
As per the latest statistic, in India 52 persons died every hour in various accidents in 2014, the major causes of accidental deaths in India are “Traffic accident, “Drowning”, “Poisoning” and “Accidental fire”. India has the highest Road crash mortality in the world.
As per the statistics quoted in the report of the action for road safety, each year nearly 16 lakh people die globally as a result of a road traffic collision— more than 3000 deaths each day—and more than half of these people are not travelling in a car.
About 2 to 5 crore more people sustain non-fatal injuries from a collision, and these injuries are an important cause of disability worldwide. Ninety percent of road traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, which claim less than half the world’s registered vehicle fleet.
Some of the important reasons of increased mortality in developing countries like India that included: non-availability of trauma systems which include care from the injury site till rehabilitation; pre-hospital care is absent in many states, and in some states very primitive without the state of the art ambulances, trained manpower and proper organization in a definite geographical area; in-hospital trauma care infrastructure presently cannot cater to the needs of ‘multiply injured patients’ due to lack of trained manpower and resources; Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Legislation is not uniformly adapted; only state of Gujarat has enacted it; lack of authentic data and trauma related research; and non-existent or few rehabilitation facilities.