Trauma care centres to come up in major hospitals across Bengal

Kolkata: The state government has chalked out a detailed plan to set up trauma care centres at various hospitals in the state, to ensure quick treatment to accident victims. The government will bear a cost of around Rs 45 crore for the construction of the trauma care centres and for buying equipments.

According to initial plans, eight trauma care centres would be constructed in the first phase. The locations would be on or near national and state highways and other important roads.

It has been learnt that three trauma care centres would be located at SSKM Hospital, Bardhaman Medical College and Hospital (BMCH) and North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH), while three others would be constructed at Kharagpur, Asansol and Islampur. The remaining two will be set up at Singur and Amtala.

The critical patients would be admitted in the trauma care centres on an emergency basis. Accident victims or any trauma patient will be kept in the centres, where the patients would be given special care. These trauma care centres will have all the modern facilities to handle such patients.

The victims of fire incidents or those seriously injured in accidents, would be taken to the trauma care unit of the hospitals, where they would be given immediate attention. It is important to transfer these patients to a hospital equipped with trauma care facilities. This could save lives of many accident victims in the state, the senior officials of the state Health department said.

The construction of the trauma care centre at BMCH has already been done. There will be 25 beds – 10 general, 10 critical care and five step down or high-dependency units (HDU).

Accidents victims in the area are often brought to the city's hospital and it takes a long time to shift a critical patient to the city. Had there been a trauma care unit at BMCH, people meeting with road accidents in the area can be provided treatment faster. The trauma care centre at NBMCH will be made operational soon.

According to the Health department sources, the largest trauma care centre is coming up at the SSKM Hospital. It is expected that it can be made operational within September this year. Those coming up at BMCH, NBMCH and Singur will be of level 2 category, while the ones at Kharagpur and Islampur will be of level 3 category. A trauma care centre was inaugurated at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, a few months ago. It may be mentioned that RG Kar Medical College and Hospital is the first medical college hospital in the state to have a separate dedicated building for trauma care.

The eight-storeyed building of the trauma care unit has departments like medicine, neuro-medicine, neuro-surgery, orthopedic and anesthesiology. Patients are availing specialised health care facilities under the same roof. The new building has 150 beds.