Physician laments over lack of equipment to treat accident victims
A Physician with the Accident and Emergency Department, Federal Medical Centre, Abuja, Dr. Arome Adejo, has lamented the lack of equipment to treat accident victims especially those in critical condition in tertiary hospitals in the country.
Dr. Adejo mentioned during an interview that, “Lack of equipment was leading to unavoidable deaths of accident victims.”
According to the physician, most government tertiary hospitals across the country do not have a computed tomography scan to attend to unconscious accident victims.
He noted that the cause of death of accident victims requiring emergency care was a lack of CT scans and a shortage of blood at the blood banks.
The casualty officer pointed out that anybody can be in an emergency at any time, urging the government to address the gaps.
The World Health Organisation states that road traffic accidents cost low and middle-income countries between 1.0 and 2.0 per cent of their Gross National Product annually, more than the development aid the countries receive.
In the first three quarters of 2018, the Federal Road Safety Corps put the economic losses to road traffic crashes at N9.8 billion.
Adejo maintained that a tertiary hospital should have a CT scan, expressing displeasure that necessary equipment needed to treat accident victims is not available.
“Patients with a head injury, how can they be evaluated when the equipment is not there?.
“Most times, when I lie down and recall the faces of those I am supposed to have saved that died as a result of lack of facilities, I feel bad. You know that this person is not supposed to die.
“There are some preventable deaths in our emergency units. So, the government should have an emergency fund that hospitals can access to treat accident victims.
“The Government should also encourage doctors to work in primary healthcare centres by paying them well,” he added.
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