Srinagar, Aug 29: At a place where trauma patients pour in hospitals day in and day out, the trauma care is just not up to the mark, raising a question mark over the Jammu and Kashmir government’s recurring assurance of providing quality healthcare.
 While there is an overall dearth of trauma specialists in hospitals across the Valley, the absence of a full-fledged trauma facility is making the patients suffer. As if it were not enough, the haphazard placement of trauma specialists and the allied surgeons is making the patients roam from pillar to post for want of ‘specialized treatment.’
 According to medicos, no Valley-based hospital is able to handle a patient who is subjected to multiple traumatic injuries.  “If a person is suffering from head, leg and abdominal injury simultaneously, he is shifted to Bone and Joint Surgery Hospital for leg care, referred to the SMHS hospital for abdominal treatment and later to SK Institute of Medical Sciences, Soura for head treatment,” said a medico at the SMHS hospital, insisting not to be named. “During the transit, the patient gets neglected on several fronts and can die. So if we have all trauma specialists under one roof, we don’t need to subject the patient to repeated anesthesia.”
 While the SMHS hospital is able to handle just patients with abdominal traumas, the SK Institute of Medical Sciences, Soura has to wait for an orthopedic surgeon to arrive from its medical college at JVC.
 The trauma care in the Valley hospitals is too poor, if medicos are to be believed. This is because the hospitals lack the full-fledged trauma centres, with specialized doctors and paramedical staff who are able to handle trauma cases right from their arrival in a hospital. “It is a different subject altogether. You need a full-fledged trauma team that is well-versed with handing trauma patients.
This time you are using local staff to ferry trauma patients when it needs special doctors and paramedics,” said a SKIMS official, pleading anonymity. “This staff has to be a separate one and should be available in the trauma centre round the clock. It is technically called as the trauma team comprising a group of doctors, radiographers and other support personnel who have to be solely engaged with treating the trauma patients.”
 The staff, he said, should be trained in Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS).
 Sources said the Valley is facing acute shortage of traumatologists, with Jammu and Kashmir government failing to compensate the deficit. While the SMHS has some doctors trained in trauma, the Valley as is running short of traumatologists, given the fact that it is a specialized branch of medicine in itself.
 The Health Department, the sources said, has placed a traumatologist at the Sub-District Hospital Pattan where hardly a trauma patient is treated in absence of requisite infrastructure. The traumatologist, they said, should have been posted at the SMHS hospital keeping in view the recurring flow of trauma patients in the wake of crisis in Kashmir. “You can utilize his services in training doctors and paramedics on how to handle trauma patients,” the source said, adding the traumatologist has been certified as ATLS by the American College of Surgeons.
 While a trauma facility is coming up at Shreen Bagh Srinagar, it is unclear how the authorities are intending to go ahead with its staff arrangement. “The Shreen Bagh trauma centre should be the end. Ultimately, every district must have a level one or two trauma centre so that we have minimum referrals. These centers have to be equipped with qualified traumatologists and required infrastructure so that the patients are treated there and not unnecessarily referred to overburdened SKIMS or SMHS,” said a SKIMS doctor.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST