Steps to boost golden hour care

“As one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals was to halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2023, it is essential to ensure timely referral and definitive treatment for the injured victims within the ‘Golden Hour’ in the state,” said Darez Ahmed of the National Health Mission, adding that the state therefore hopes to be able to halve its burden of RTA deaths and injuries by the said year. 

With Tamil Nadu known to be the state with the most number of road traffic accidents and injuries – 17,376 deaths as per National Crime Records Bureau 2015 - the need for efforts to be taken up to ensure it is checked, is essential. The state government is therefore working towards establishing a state trauma surveillance centre at a budget of Rs 1 crore, with real time reporting of accident and trauma cases to provide evidence based decision for policy formulation on road safety, injury preventive interventions with components for improving quality care and better outcomes and rational utilisation of resources. 

“After a feasibility analysis of existing trauma care facilities, the state government has decided to designate Trauma Care Centers as Level-1, 2 and 3,” added Ahmed. In the policy note announced by Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar early this year, he said, “This requires the upgradation and strengthening of the existing public hospitals as identified and designated as “Level-1/Level-2/ Level-3 Trauma Care Centers based on the Government of India standards with assured referral linkage services.” 

Stating that the establishment of a state injury and trauma registry surveillance system will provide a high-quality data resource for planning and monitoring of future trauma care services, Dr Naresh K, a neurosurgeon, said, “It is expected that there will be a reduction in mortality rates due to accidents and injury, for which Tamil Nadu is the highest. There will be a considerable increase in the number of trauma care services, including timely lifesaving procedures done by various levels of TCCs under public hospitals.”

Level 1: Emergency intervention in Neuro Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Radiology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine with a capacity of 30 Inpatient beds, including 10 ICU beds.

Level 2: Emergency intervention in Neuro Surgery, Radiology, Orthopaedic Surgery, General Surgery and Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine with a capacity of 20 Inpatient beds, including 10 ICU beds.

Level 3: Emergency intervention in Orthopaedic Surgery, General Surgery and Anaesthesiology,v Radiology and critical Care Medicine with a capacity of 10 Inpatient beds, including 5 ICU beds.