Importance of integrated trauma care system highlighted

Dr Ziauddin Hospital hosted a daylong symposium on “Emergency Medicine and Trauma Management” at its Clifton campus on Saturday.

Dr Aijaz Fatima, founder, Dr Ziauddin Hospital, inaugurated the event as chief guest and said it was a great achievement by this institution to organise such an informative symposium where a large number of participants would benefit from the experience of leading medical experts.

“We have a lot of experts for trauma. I hope all of you who are attending symposium will go out and help trauma patients.”

Dr Inayat Ali Khan, consultant neurosurgeon, Ziauddin Medical University, said that “time is brain and if time is lost the brain is lost.” He was speaking on the subject of “CT head in hemodynamically unstable patients”.

“Second brain injury is mostly due to raised ICP. Traumatic brain injury is a growing epidemic throughout the world and may present as major global burden till 2020. Three per cent of delay can increase the risk of life or molestation 30 times more,” he further said.

Speaking on spinal trauma and its management, Dr Naveed Khan, consultant neurosurgeon, said that people can recover from spinal injuries in the first eight hours. He added that 25 per cent of spinal injuries occur after primary injuries, and recovering from spinal injuries needs good care and good hospitals.

Dr Syed Nadir Naeem spoke on “chest trauma” and said that chest injury was a big cause of breath problem. He added that 20 per cent of all trauma patients sustained chest injuries.

Highlighting the importance of integrated trauma care system, Prof Saeed Minhas, incharge, Orthopedics & Trauma, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and JSMU, stated that trauma treatment was a team work and it could not be managed without expert team.

According to a research, he said, 50-80 per cent of people die because of trauma injury. He said that we have the best surgeons and doctors here in our country but we do not have a good system and coordination.

“Since January 1, only in 13 days, we have received 49 bike accident cases about girls sitting on a bike wearing wrong clothes (dupatta, abaya, etc.). As a result of aerial firing, we had received 19 injury cases. During the last two decades we have found a 10 to 25 per cent increase in trauma.”

Prof Abbas Zafar, dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ziauddin University, said that this field is very interesting for our students who are in the last year of their MBBS program and have not yet graduated but are getting job offers from different countries. This topic is being neglected for years. And I’m sure about my students I know after completing their studies they will help community.

Prof M Z Jilani, chairman, Emergency Medicine, Ziauddin University, in his welcome note, said that it is the first emergency medicine symposium being held in Karachi and this is the great platform to tell medical colleges that we have a lot of young doctors and we need to train them and retain them.