Traffic Accidents Top Trauma List

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Monday June 22, 2009 00:00

This was revealed by Botswana Police director of traffic, senior assistant commissioner of police, Victor Paledi, giving a presentation at a symposium on management of trauma organised by Nyangabwe Hospital last week in Francistown.

He said that children contributed to the high number of trauma cases.

Paledi believes that there is an improvement though.

'The major road safety indicators show that there is a significant improvement with this situation in Botswana,' he said.

He said in the past five years the number of road traffic accidents went down.

Paledi said that the Botswana police are not properly equipped for trauma but they are updating their equipment.

Over 11,000 were caught for careless driving, 1,175 for drunken driving, 6,060 for talking on the cellphone, more than 11, 000 for driving without a licence and many more. The total number came up to P156, 561.

Also giving his presentation at the symposium Dr Celest Mbangtang of Nyangabwe Referral Hospital (NRH) said that they kept track of all trauma cases at Nyangabwe between April 2008 and March 31 2009. 

He was giving a presentation on the Epidemiology of Trauma in NRH.

He said that within those 12 months they saw a total of 29, 701 trauma patients.

He said that RTAs contributed 30 percent to the trauma cases followed by falls at 28 percent and assault at 22 percent.

He said that children also followed suit at 21 percent.

Mbangtang said that the trauma cases, as observed by NRH affected the reproductive ages of 21 to 40 years old.

'Children make a significant number of the cases, while the reproductive people in our society are also highly affected,' he said.

He added that men were also making up high numbers during their investigation at the Accident and Emergency room in Nyangabwe.

'Preventable injuries continue to plague us,' he said.

He said that for the people who came to A&E 63 percent were male, while 27 percent were female which means men make the highest number.

A Norwegian trauma team was also present at the symposium as Norway has been sponsoring government hospitals to train their trauma teams the best possible way.