Mumbai-based P.D. Hinduja Hospital would be starting post-trauma care workshops for ambulance personnel, paramedics and policemen in Mumbai, in similar lines to the workshop that it offers to the doctors. Currently, PDHH offers a two-day workshop on post-trauma care for the city-based doctors. The workshop is conducted once every three months. However, the hospital will extend the workshop to the above faculties only after the city doctors are well educated with the handling of the post-trauma care. "Our initial focus will be to educate the city-based doctors on trauma care. Only after a substantial number of doctors are trained, we will be conducting workshops for ambulance personnel, paramedics and policemen," said Dr. Vivek Shetty, orthopedic surgeon and coordinator of the workshop. Dr. Milind Sankhe of the neurology department of PDHH is the other coordinator of the workshop.
Barring a few like PDHH and Sion Hospital, not many hospitals in the city offer an intensive workshop for taking care during the post-trauma period. "This is reverse to the hospitals in US and the UK, where every hospital offers a short term course educating the public regarding the handling of trauma-related cases," said Dr Shetty.
"Every ten minute, there occur one serious case of trauma in Mumbai and the first hour after the incident is the most critical," he said. The survival of the victim is solely dependent on the care that he realizes during the first hour. This amount to the fact that a majority of the death related cases is on account of the improper resuscitation and handling of the trauma victims, he said.
India has the highest number of accident related cases in the world. There occur about 140 accidents per 10,000 vehicles as compared to two per 10,000 in US, according to Dr S. Balasubramaniam, Chairman, Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI). The statistic never ends here as it is estimated that the number of road accidents per 1,000 vehicles in India is twice as high as in the United Kingdom, five times as high as in Italy, and 10 times as high as in Australia. The fatalities in these accidents in India alone are estimated to be 15-20 times high compared to these countries.
PDHH's current workshop also focuses upon the initial maneuver required during the critical one hour after the accident. It exhaustively teaches aspects like rolling the victim, shock management, management of the injuries in the head and neck, intravenous infusion of fluids, placing of air ways, insertion of chest tubes, fracture management, special treatment for injuries to children etc.
The training is accompanied by a multiple-choice question-based test and a practical test. Attendees qualifying in both the tests are awarded with a certificate. Doctors who attended the course had nice experiences to share about the workshop. "Prior to the test, I was having literally no knowledge about handling a trauma patient. However, now I can really try at helping an accident victim. A large number of victims' lives could be saved if many hospitals in the city offer similar educative programmes," said Dr. Nitin Rao, MBBS, one of the attendees of the workshop.