Most road-accident victims in India end up succumbing to their injuries for the delay in timely medical attention owing to the reluctance of hospitals in taking the victim’s responsibility during the most crucial hours.
Despite the Supreme Court ruling that forbids hospitals from refusing to attend critically injured or ill patients, the truth is a far cry from reality.
Following the tragic death of Murugan, a Tamil Nadu resident who succumbed to road accident injuries after being refused for treatment by many hospitals, Kerala is instating a Trauma Care Project that will fast-track specialised treatment for road-accident victims and ensure that they get the treatment well within the golden hour.
An ambitious project on behalf of the state government, the initiative will also fund for the treatment expenses of the victims for the first 48 hours, including those at private hospitals.
Under the project proposal, one of the guidelines includes forbidding the hospitals from charging any amount of medical fee from the relatives of a victim for the first 48 hours of treatment, reports New Indian Express.
The project will be funded through the state government’s Kerala Road Safety Fund and Social Security Fund of the Kerala State Transport Project. The amount that will be remunerated by the government will be later recovered from respective insurance companies, who will be roped into the project as a detailed framework gets drafted.
The project will ensure that all government medical colleges have a trauma care system, along with district and taluk hospitals as well as major private medical centres.
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This will include special ambulance services equipped with modern amenities that will bring the accident victims to the closest hospitals in the vicinity without any further delay. For this service, the government intends to invite private players.
An exclusive software is part of the plan that will help in selecting the ambulances and private hospitals. A centralised call centre is also in the pipeline that will monitor all the activities with the support of the software.
In a recent meeting, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had asked the officials to put an end to the practice of denying treatment to accident victims and along with it, the bias in providing it only to the rich and privileged.