12 more trauma care centres to come up in 11 districts to reduce response time

As many as 70,958 patients were treated at these emergency care centres till February 2019, with the highest number of patients (35,954) treated in Mamallapuram ECC.

“Often, trauma victims in outskirts could not be attended in the golden hour as ambulances have to rush to the trauma care facilities in the district headquarters,” said Uma Maheswari, director, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project. To address this problem, ECCs would be set up after identifying the accident hotspots in the State, she added.

“It used to take about 16 minutes to respond to trauma cases and take them to tertiary care centres for treatment. The ECCs will help stabilise the victim within 20 minutes at the unit before they are sent to a government hospital or the hospital of choice of the patient or kin,” said M Selva Kumar, State Head of Operations, GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute.

The ECCs are under construction in Sriperumbudur, Krishnagiri, Vellore, Cuddalore and Namakkal after identifying the accident hotspots in the districts. The critical care centre in Sriperumbudur is almost complete and will be operational soon,” added the official.

The first ECC was set up in Tambaram in 2013. A total of 18,574 accident victims have received trauma care at the Tambaram centre, while 12,438 and 3,992 patients were given treatment at Padiyanallur and Injambakkam centres respectively. Around 44 motorcycle ambulances that were launched in the State last year have also helped to attend more than 1,200 patients till now, a majority of them in Chennai.

The patients attended at the ECC are given first aid and the receiving hospitals are alerted about the medical condition of the patients so that tertiary care can be offered to them immediately after arrival. The officials said that the emergency care response time for the accident victims has reduced after ECCs were built, saving 80 per cent more lives.

Most of the trauma care victims suffer from external injuries and fractures along with profuse bleeding. “We conduct suturing using medical devices to hold body tissues together after an injury. Desaturation in case of head injuries is carried out at the ECC. If we sense cardiac issues, we also take ECG and alert the receiving hospital so that the Cardiology Department can attend the patient immediately. We also ensure bleeding is controlled and immobilise the patients before transporting them to a tertiary care centre,” said Dr Sivagurunathan, head of emergency, medicine and learning.

With a large number of head injury cases and blood clot issues being witnessed, medicos suggest that thrombolysis therapy, which is the dissolution of a blood clot, especially as induced artificially by infusion of an enzyme into the blood, can be also added to treatments provided at the ECC.

Despite Injambakkam ECC on ECR, patients have to travel a long distance to even access pharmacies. Though Mahabalipuram ECC has helped to provide first aid treatment to victims, more healthcare facilities are needed on the stretch. Patients are rushed to either Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in the city for tertiary care or they have to shell money for treatment in a private hospital in the vicinity.

Most of the patients attended by 108 ambulance service are accidents mainly due to poor road engineering, inadequate illumination, blind curves, lack of proper signals, stray cattle, overspeeding, bottlenecks and distractions on such stretches.

“New ECCs will be built in places where there are no tertiary care facilities. We are planning to bring up about 50 ECCs across the State to facilitate emergency trauma care,” said a senior official at the GVK EMRI. However, there are various challenges such as legal issues while allocating the site, commercial problems, lack of skilled labour force and lack of infrastructure delaying the ECC projects, said official sources.