MVA Fund spends P54m on spinal cord injuries
Pini Bothoko | Tuesday September 6, 2022 06:00
The crashes are not only a public health issue but they are also a social and economic issue that cost government millions of pula annualy.
Officiating at the just-ended Trauma Management Symposium that was held at Avani Hotel on Friday, Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund Board Chairperson, Dr Boitumelo Mokgatla said on an annual basis, the Fund reserves an estimated P120 million for managing severe wounds and some of which include spinal cord injuries.
Mokgatla stated that MVA has a total database of 182 spinal cord injured claimants spread across the country, 133 being paraplegics while 50 are tetraplegics. She further noted that as at the end of July 2022, these accounted for 53.3% of the estimated cost of claims, which translates to P54 million for the current year.
“Severe injuries including spinal cord injuries are the highest cost drivers. This is mainly due to their complexity, long length of hospital stays in specialised units, and need for intensive rehabilitation. They also give rise to other benefits such as enhancements of quality of life, housing modifications, loss of income, and caretaker costs,” she said.
Mokgatla added that Traumatic Spinal Cord Injuries (TSCI) have a considerable impact in terms of mortality and quality of life and represent a relevant burden for healthcare systems due to the expensive and complex medical support required by patients.
She said the injuries are high-cost claims and pose a risk to the Fund's financial sustainability adding that TSCI is a leading cause of disability, especially amongst younger people with a high impact on years lived with disability.
“Most painfully, it is mostly the youth whose bright future is interrupted. A spinal cord injury is a traumatic lifelong changing injury, the claimants always need intensive psychological interventions to accept their permanent disabilities,” she said.
Mokgatla stated that within the first year of a spinal cord injury, medical costs can escalate as healthcare costs continue to rise, and as a result, sometimes MVA cannot go as far as they wish regarding rehabilitation hence the need to be innovative and stretch the little resources that the country have.
When making a presentation on road accidents overview, Botswana Police Service (BPS) representative, Senior Superintendent Kebalebile Kepadisa said road traffic accidents continue to pose a severe challenge stating that on average 10–12 lives are lost weekly.
“These accidents are affecting the socio-economic development of the nation. The prevalence of road traffic accidents has maintained a constant growth over the past years. Although the recorded figures change annually, the pattern falls within the same range. Four hundred and fifty-seven {457} people died on the road in 2019 while 325 people died on the road in 2020 and 413 in 2021,” Kepadisa revealed.
He further stated that 1,183 serious injuries were recorded in 2019, while 819 were recorded in 2020, and 913 in 2021 with the majority of fatal accidents occurring along A1 Highway and Greater Gaborone. Furthermore, the senior police officer said the most affected is the age group between 21 and 50 years.
“The most affected are males with the majority of them being drivers, while the majority of females are affected as passengers. Most of these fatal accidents occur on weekends and we have established that most of them are due to drinking and driving, carelessness, speeding, pedestrian misconduct, and inexperienced drivers,” Kepadisa said.