Injury deaths soar in City

30 pc of casualties in hospitals linked to injuries of various kinds

The figures came from the 2009 report of the Bengaluru Road Safety and Injury Surveillance Programme released by the Department of Epidemiology, Nimhans, here on Friday.

The day-long seminar was attended by multiple stakeholders such as the Health Department, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), Traffic Police and 30 hospitals in Bangalore with the help of whom the data was collected.
Some of the modules of the seminar were strategies for prevention of road traffic injuries, medicolegal perspectives on injuries, suicide prevention, and trauma care. It focused on ways to reduce the number of injuries through collaborative efforts from various departments.

The report indicated that there was a huge economic impact in injury cases and the minimum cost of hospitalisation was Rs 40,000 per person. In fact, the two major injury problems in the City were road traffic injuries contributing nearly 800 deaths and suicides around 2,400 deaths.
It also mentioned that trauma care was inadequate and poor. According to WHO, for every death 30-40 people get hospitalised and 50-100 need care for minor injuries.

WHO initiative

"The burden of injuries in our country is very high. Around 10 per cent of all deaths are due to injuries. And, interestingly, the pattern is similar even in rural areas. While the Government of India is starting trauma care programme and different categories of trauma centres are being established, prevention of injuries needs more attention," said Dr J S Thakur, Cluster Focal Point, Non Communicable Diseases and Mental Health, WHO.
To curb injury related deaths, WHO launched Global Road Injury Prevention (GRIP) project on January 1, 2010. “For starters, the project will be implemented in ten countries including China and India. These countries have been chosen because they contribute 50 per cent of the deaths in the world due to injuries,” said Dr Thakur.
The project will be implemented in two states - one each in Northern and Southern part of India. "The focus will be on injury prevention or road safety, trauma care and data management. For this, we will be holding the stakeholders meet in April," he said.
DH News Service