With an increasing number of brain and spinal injury cases in teenagers coming to Jai Prakash Apex Trauma Centre, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) carried out a campaign for a week where they spoke to schoolchildren of Government and private schools and spread awareness regarding the use of helmets and seatbelts. Along with the Traffic Police, AIIMS motive was to ensure that teenagers between the age of 13 and 17 don’t drive without licences and always use the necessary safety precautions.
AIIMS went to 16 schools and interacted with over 60,000 children regarding the consequences of not wearing a helmet or seatbelt. “Every minute, six accidents take place; every six minutes, one person dies of a head or spinal injury. Wearing the seatbelt or a helmet can actually reduce the percentage of these deaths and injuries to a very significant level. Additionally, 90 per cent of cases of head injury coming in are of students. Thus, awareness needs to be there and it all starts when you instil this knowledge in young minds,” said Dr Deepak Gupta, Additional Professor of Neurology at AIIMS.
He added that financially, treatment of head injury patients accounts for approximately three per cent of the country’s entire GDP. “This shows how not only the family of the patient is suffering through an economic loss but also the country. This can change if people exercise precaution,” said Gupta.
Doctors from AIIMS along with the Traffic Police went to schools and gave presentations, asked students to make posters on road safety and made them take the pledge for preventing head injury as well. Head of Department of Neurosurgery Dr BS Sharma said, “Seventy per cent accidents relating to head injury take place within the age group of 15 to 45. Of these, 20 per cent are children below 18 years. These children drive rashly and without licences. They need to be told what an act of braggadocio can lead to.”
AIIMS took this initiative by approaching schoolchildren because they feel that when children will inculcate these things they can also influence adults.As per AIIMS data, “roughly 350 head injury cases in need of surgery come to AIIMS Trauma Centre in a year. Of these, the mortality rate is approximately 30 per cent to 40 per cent while 10 per cent to 15 per cent are severe,” said Dr Gupta. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Anil Shukla was also a part of this campaign.