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Masaka, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Causality and emergency healthcare service providers have expressed concern over the continued transportation of accident victims on police patrol vehicles, stating that it complicates the management of patients.
Dr. Alfonse Omona, a General Surgeon who currently heads the Accidents and Emergency Department at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital, noted that the majority of accident victims are usually delivered to the hospital by police patrol pickups, which oftentimes worsen their conditions even before they are delivered to the facility, reducing their chances of survival.
Available records indicate that on a daily basis, Masaka regional referral hospital receives at least 10 accident victims that require serious emergency care services. However, Dr. Omona has observed that many of the accident victims who die in the process of being delivered to the hospital usually suffer dislocations in their vertebral spines as a result of improper post-accident handling and transportation.
He advises that the accident victims should be evacuated through convenient transport means that allow for stretching of their limbs, rather than bundling them on patrol pickups which further injure them, hence reducing their chances of survival.
Dr. Omona adds that almost half of the accident victims succumb to preventable trauma deaths, something that requires the concerted efforts of all stakeholders, including police, to ensure safe patient handling and delivery mechanisms.
Besides advocating for safe road usage to prevent crashes, Dr. Omona and his team have considered a public awareness campaign on the proper handling of accident victims.
Amwekola Birungi, a Call and Dispatch Officer at the Masaka Hospital Emergency Department, advised that communities prioritize seeking ambulance services to transport accident victims, rather than improvised means that may worsen the conditions of patients.
She has also appealed to the Ministry of Health to expedite the process of operationalizing the proposed National Ambulance Service System, which will provide appropriate patient-handling services across the country.
Richard Komaketch, the greater Masaka Regional Traffic Officer, indicates that patrol pickups are usually used under inevitable circumstances, especially when available ambulance services are out of reach. He, however, challenged the public to focus on preventing road accidents by heeding traffic regulations, rather than managing casualties, which he says is expensive.
According to police records, between January 2022 and February 2023, the greater Masaka Sub-region registered 163 people who died in accidents.
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