Accidents prevention, response and relief : a case study of road traffic accidents in Bangalore city

Abstract

World over and in India, Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) have become one of the major public health concerns. Fatalities of over 981 persons and injuries to over6591 persons during 2007, posed a grim reminder to the situation on the roads of Bangalore city. Any plans of mitigating the accidents on the roads, would involve a paradigm shift in the approach to road traffic accidents with multi-agency coordination and should look into the prevention, response and relief processes available for RTA victims and the delivery of services. The study was aimed at evaluating the paradigm shift in responses to RTA victims. The traffic police manpower is found to be inadequate in the background of the huge growth in motor vehicles in Bangalore city. The allocation of traffic police personnel to various police stations and focused deterrent measures which can have bearing on the number of accidents is not based on any empirical data. The concept of Golden Hour was not the underlying concept in various delivery services to RTA victims. The role of auto rickshaws and private transport is significant in transporting victims to the hospitals and ambulances catered to just about 5% of the victims. Significant number of victims did not reach hospitals within the first hour of treatment. None of the agencies, statutory and non-statutory had any knowledge of the first aid to be administered to the victims. As far as awareness of victims was concerned, the Police Control Room happened to be the most known to victims for seeking help. The destination of first hospital for an RTA victim was not based on any triage and, this resulted in loss of time before reaching a definitive hospital for treatment. The government hospitals handled disproportionately larger number of victims than private hospitals. Significant number of accidents went unreported and the estimates of burden of injury are thus lower than the actual number of accidents. At present, the road motor vehicle users in Bangalore city are thus not catered to by any organized approach to prevention, response and relief in case of RTAs.