Keonjhar: Patients in need of emergency care fail to get timely treatment in the absence of a trauma care centre in the entire Keonjhar district. Despite the fact that the mineral-rich district brings hundreds of crores to the state exchequer, there is not even a properly functioning Intensive Care Unit (ICU) either at the district headquarters hospital (DHH) or the sub-divisional hospitals in the district. An ICU has been established at the DHH but it is yet to become functional due to lack of manpower.
As a result, the district is witnessing accident-related deaths almost on a daily basis while many injured victims are becoming permanently disabled due to lack of timely treatment. The unavailability of timely treatment after road accidents in the district has sparked sharp resentment among the patients and their kin. Sources said that people critically injured due to road accidents, factory mishaps, falling from the top of buildings, gunshots and fires are provided emergency care and treatment through trauma care centres. The mineral-rich district witnesses frequent road mishaps due to the plying of hundreds of iron ore and mineral-laden trucks as well as other vehicles from various mines.
Similarly, the national highway passing through the district also witnesses frequent road mishaps due to the plying of thousands of vehicles. The drivers of the vehicles and passengers travelling in them die or get critically wounded in the road mishaps occurring on the highways. In such situations, the critically injured need to be rescued in time and rushed to the hospital within the ‘golden hour’ to be saved through emergency treatment. However, sans a trauma care centre in the district, critically injured patients are referred to the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack which is about 200 km from this district headquarters town.
Many of them often succumb to their injuries en route to Cuttack. Residents claimed that the district administration is carrying out renovations and beautification works of parks, and ponds by spending crores from the funds available from the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) and Odisha Mineral Bearing Areas Development Corporation (OMBADC) but has never spared a thought to establish a trauma care centre by spending the same funds. Ashok Das, former president of Keonjhar Bar Association demanded the establishment of a trauma care centre to check accident-related deaths as the accident victims fail to get proper treatment in the DHH. This is because the DHH always remains overcrowded due to visits of patients from neighbouring Mayurbhanj, Deogarh districts as well as neighbouring Jharkhand to avail healthcare services, he said. When contacted, the Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO) Dr KC Prusty said the state government has plans for the establishment of trauma care centres in Keonjhar district. These trauma care centres will be established in the DHH as well as in the sub-divisional hospitals at Anandapur and Champua and in the Barbil Community Health Centre (CHC).