By Asma’u Ahmad
The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety and Injury Prevention said effective emergency medical care could reduce road crashes mortality by 500,000 across the globe.
The Focal person for the agency, Dr. Sydney Ibeanusi, said this at a news conference to commemorate the World Day Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims in Abuja.
This year’s theme is: “Vital post-crash actions: Medical care, investigation and justice’’.
Dr. Ibeanusi explained that the gap in the injury outcomes resulting from road crashes between developed and developing countries was linked to lack of quality healthcare.
According to him, effective implementation of emergency medical care would go a long way in assisting victims lived there normal live and fully reintegrated to their families.
He decried what he described as the countless number of deaths recorded as a result of road crashes due to lack of prompt emergency services.
According to him, if emergency medical facilities are fully in place a lot of those people would have still been alive.
However, he called for the concerted efforts of all and sundry to reduce the menace to the barest minimum.
“Target of the UN decade of action is to reduce the crashes, injuries and death by 50 per cent by 2020, and we could achieve this target by similar interventions of increasing efficient emergency medical services.
“Pragmatic approach to reducing road crashes on our roads lies in the prevention of road crashes rather than trying to save live.
”However, we cannot ignore the role of effective emergency care would play in ensuring that once crashes occurred the victims are kept alive and return back to their families as quickly as possible,” he said.
