File photo of a a truck over-turned at the Al Mansoura signal on C-ring road near Holiday Villa hotel in last September
Calling for more traffic awareness, the head of the Trauma, Vascular Surgery and General Surgery Sections at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has said that increasing number of road accidents was also increasing costs of healthcare provision to the injured.
Talking about the costs country was bearing for road-accidents injuries in a recent interview, Dr Hassan Ali Saoud Al Thani said per night cost of staying at the hospital without charges of surgery and medicines was ranging from QR5,000 to QR7,000.
“There are some injured people who stay at the hospital for one year and more and in that case costs of providing healthcare cross QR2m,” he said, adding that these were the expenses of just for a bed at HMC while the advance procedures, implants and replacement of bodily parts were separate or the care of an injured patient at Intensive Care also would double the costs.
“The per night cost at Intensive Care starts from QR10,000 and this is a minimum. The injured patients may spend three to four months at Intensive Care which costs QR1.5m”. He further said that most of the Qataris used to prefer rehabilitation abroad whose costs were very high.
He said ambulance services at Hamad Hospital were undergoing various developments and its response time was just 12-13 minutes. “We have achieved a great success in reducing time of whole ambulance operation. From the reporting of the accident until the injured from outside Doha reaches Hamad Hospital is not more than 15 minutes and this is considered a big achievement especially if we keep in mind that the international average is from 12 to 13 minutes”, Dr Hassan Ali Saoud Al Thani said in interview with Traffic Magazine.
Dr Hassan Ali Saoud Al Thani said that traffic accidents had became a source of worry for the society as a large number of people have fallen victims. “I am sorry to say that most of the homes have some people injured in accidents, either as a pedestrian or as a passenger or driver,” he added.
He said the HMC Trauma Centre had a team of specialist doctors who were also promoting road safety through awareness campaigns. “Although there are many drawbacks of traffic jam, it has contributed to decreasing accidents due to reduction in speeds.”
He said that according to available data, most of the accident victims were less than 30 years and most of them died on the spot.
“The last research we conducted showed that about 300 deaths in road accident cases occurred after the victims reached the Hamad Hospital while others died on the spot and some just after reaching the hospital but before getting treatment.”
He said that the families bore the responsibility of checking growing number of accidents.
“They must not allow children under 15 years to drive,” he said.
