Although the State health department is busy for laying foundation stone for trauma care centre with an aim to medical assisting emergency cases, the department has completely failed to run those trauma care centres that were built years ago.
Department officials after expressing concern over the acute shortage of medical officers and paramedical staff in the State claimed that best possible medical care has been provided to the patients. The State Government is now started realizing the fact that proposed trauma care centres is not only expensive, but non-availability of medical officers and paramedical staff has been hampering the department’s efforts for providing immediate medical relief to patients.
It is to be noted that trauma care centres were proposed with an aim to provide exclusive medical and health care to road traffic accident cases and expecting mothers in order to lower down the mother and infant mortality rate in the Garhwal and Kumaon divisions of Uttarakhand. Among those trauma care centres that were although constructed which includes Kashipur (Udham Singh Nagar), Rishikesh (Dehradun), Almora (Almora), DH and Vikas Nagar (Dehradun), Roorkee (Haridwar) and Gopeshwar(Chamoli), but the non availability of medical staff has been hampering the department efforts for providing medical relief to patients.
Department sources revealed that the average cost for the construction of trauma care centre hovers Rs 70 lakh and Rs one crore, but after failing to attract manpower for the trauma centres, the State health department is also looking to privatise it. It is to be noted that a well-equipped trauma centre fulfills the role of timely and round the clock medical assistance especially to accident victims and specialist doctors which include plastic surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, ENT, anesthetist, pediatrician, gynecologist etc.
Well established sources revealed that most deaths are caused by accidents and trauma deaths are mainly due to crashes and suicides and centres on the highway should have been the top priority. Additionally, referring patients from health centres that are operating in the remote parts of the district to district hospital jeopardizes the lives of patients till they reach at higher centres.
After expressing his concern over the acute shortage of medical officers and paramedical staff in the State that has been continuously hampering the department’s efforts for providing immediate medical care to road traffic accident cases in the State, he claimed that emergency medical officers of the district hospitals and health centres are completely trained to provide immediate medical care to seriously ill patients.