Emergency service for rescuing accident victims

by Nadira Gunatilleke

Around 300 patients involved in different types of accidents visit the Colombo National Hospital (CNH) daily for medical treatment. Home-based accidents top the highest position while road accidents secured the second place.

These facts were disclosed during a press conference held at the Colombo Mayor's House on Friday in connection with the launching of an Emergency Rescue Service (Dial 110) to assist different types of accident victims. It was also revealed that the third highest accidents are occupational accidents and the violence related accidents come to the fourth place.

Around 60,000 people die in Sri Lanka from accidents and 2,000 or 2,500 out of them become tragic victims of traffic accidents. They succumb to injuries mostly due to serious head injuries, CNH Director Hector Weerasinghe said.

Apart from Colombo, the highest number of accidents take place Colombo - Katunayaka road corridor and Colombo-Kandy road corridor.

Twenty-five per cent of accident victims come to the CNH daily are road accident victims. Between 50-100 patients are the victims of road accidents and they suffer from multiple injuries where the condition is more serious. The victims of home accidents and other accidents often suffer from one or two injuries. About 30 per cent of deaths related to road accidents can be prevented through proper care, first aid and professional handling of victims.

Proper handling of patients makes a significant difference but at the moment about 53 per cent of victims are being transported to hospitals by three-wheelers. Most of the time it is bystanders and not paramedics who assist taking victims to the hospitals.