Chennai: Two Emergency Care Centres (ECCs) established along the ECR at Injambakkam and Mahabalipuram have saved the lives of close to 8,000 trauma victims in the last three years.
Tamil actor Yashika Anand, who met with an accident on Saturday, was stabilised at the Mahabalipiram ECC before being taken to a private hospital for surgeries.
Until 2017-18, road accident and other trauma cases, reported along ECR between Thiruvanmiyur and Koovathur, were admitted either at Chengalpet Government Medical College Hospital or Tambaram Government Hospital.
Serious cases were mostly referred to Government Royapettah Hospital (GRH) or Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH), which are at least 25 km away. It took at least one hour to reach these hospitals.
Due to this, patients were unable to get the best medical care within the ‘golden hour’.
Three years ago, the state health department and GVKEMRI set up two 24/7 ECCs at these locations so that patients, mostly road accident victims, could be stabilised before referring them to higher health centres for further treatment, said EMRI operations head M Selvakumar.
“We hardly get 20 to 30 minutes to control excess bleeding, stabilise vital signs or immobilise a fractured area so that accident victims become fit for the next one hour to travel till Royapettah or Chengalpattu,” said T Vinoth, an emergency physician at Mahabalipuram ECC.
The centres together have 10 emergency beds and adequate live-saving medical equipment like ventilators, defibrillators for airway and fluid management in trauma cases. These centres are run by a group of 7 doctors and 23 paramedics.
Dr Avinaash Raghupathy at Injambakkam ECC said head injuries used to be quite common when it came to accidents involving two-wheelers. “But the number of such injuries has dipped of late because of strict enforcement along the ECR,” he said.
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