Road Traffic Accidents are causing a huge economic and financial burden to hospitals and the community.
Data from the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital’s Orthopedic Surgery Department show that 900 patients get admitted in the orthopedic ward in a year, 747 (83 percent) of them being due to road traffic accidents and only 17 percent being due to other causes.
According to the data, 65 percent of the patients admitted do not have health insurance which poses a huge burden to communities. The financial burden also causes delays in surgical management and an economic burden to the hospital as it sometimes has to waive bills.
Dr. Benard Odhiambo is an Orthopedic Surgeon at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital (CGTRH). He says most patients present long bone fractures with femur fractures being 495 (55%) of the total cases, open tibia fibular fractures being 297 (33%), and other fractures at 108(12%).
“A good number of people who get crashed are male, and these male patients are in the active age group of 18-45,” said Dr. Odhiambo.
70 percent of the accidents are caused by tuk-tuks and bodabodas, 18 percent are pedestrians, and eight percent are motor vehicles.
Currently, the hospital has 36 patients admitted in the orthopedic ward. 26 are due to road crashes and the rest are due to pathological fractures, falls from heights, pediatric fractures while playing, workplace-related, etc.
“Nowadays, the kind of clients we get are polytrauma patients, you find that they have a head injury and other bone injuries. It has become extremely common unlike 15yrs ago. It is a pattern we have noticed,” said Dr. Odhiambo.
“Polytrauma patients tend to take a lot of finances to treat them. When they have many fractures and have to put implants in all of those fractures. They also take longer in the hospital healing. Even after healing, they take long to regain their former status,” he added.
The Orthopedic ward is busiest during the weekend as most accidents take place on Friday.
“Most people tend to over indulge in alcohol from Friday. Most come talking and tell you they were drinking, others are brought in while intoxicated. You have to get them out of the alcohol coma before treating them,” said Dr. Odhiambo.
Dr. Odhiambo was speaking during a media briefing organized by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) at the Coast General.
Through an initiative that will run up to 2025, BIGRS aims to reduce road crash fatalities and injuries in Mombasa and other counties by implementing a comprehensive set of actions that are proven to save lives.
The initiative focuses on strengthening national legislation; enhancing data collection and surveillance; changing road user behavior; improving road infrastructure; and upgrading vehicle safety to improve road safety and save lives.
