POLOKWANE – Trauma is said to be a major cause of death and disability across the world. In South Africa, one of the common causes of death and disability is road-related incidents.
ER24 Spokesperson Russel Meiring says he sometimes receives complaints from the public regarding the treatment of patients at the scene of an accident.
On investigation, it was found that the complaints do not relate to alleged negligence by ER24 crew members; they are due to people not being familiar with the latest best practice within the pre-hospital emergency medical care area.
“The most critical moment is immediately after the trauma occurs. Hence the importance of immediate, best practice pre-hospital care,” Meiring explains.
He says the best way to ensure patients receive the best care is to share information on their treatment with them at the scene. “We explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it to keep them calm and in the loop,” Meiring continues.
He shares a few facts on treating trauma patients here:
• Not applying a cervical collar in some cases, or even removing one, is often required due to research showing adverse effects being caused to these specific patients.
• Paramedics are taught how and are allowed to do spinal clearance on patients at accident scenes. They are able to follow a well researched protocol to identify patients who do not need to be immobilized. This optimizes the use of limited resources and prevents patients with uninjured spines from developing pain in their back as a result of being immobilized for prolonged periods.
• For decades, the use of tourniquets (a constricting band to stop blood flow to a limb) were banned in the pre-hospital field as they were considered dangerous and unacceptable. Recent research shows how many lives were saved among people with uncontrollable bleeding due to injuries sustained in combat situations (especially in the Middle East) with the use of tourniquets. Within the civilian emergency medical service, there are a number of cases that have demonstrated the effectiveness of this device in stopping uncontrollable bleeding from limbs. Majority of the patients did not only have their lives saved but also, did not lose their limbs. Cases where patients had to undergo amputations were due to the extent of the injury sustained and not due to the effects of the tourniquet.
• More focus is being placed on moving patients with life-threatening, operable injuries urgently to hospital instead of spending too much time on them at the accident scene.
Some techniques considered standard practice in the past, like putting up an intravenous drip, will often not be done at the scene but rather than en route to hospital or not at all in some instances as this is no longer considered as high a priority.
riana@nmgroup.co.za
