During the meeting, Shah also announced four scholarships under which four Mumbai-based surgeons will visit US trauma centres for two weeks of training. The scholarships will include return airfare, board and lodging in the US. The scholarships are courtesy Dr J Wayne Meredith, medical director, Trauma Programs, American College of Surgeons; the US Section of the International College of Surgeons, which is currently headed by Dr Sibu P Saha; the Shock Trauma Centre of the University of Maryland; and Drs Balasubramanium and Akshay Shah of the Michigan Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.
"The project will be based on the US model because we don't want them to reinvent the wheel, although of course, it could contain the necessary modifications according to federal, city, and local laws," Shah told India Abroad, the publication that rediff.com owns in the US.
"But the basic idea is to save lives. It is a tragedy that a number of lives are lost in big cities like Mumbai with its massive traffic, where trauma victims are unnecessarily left at the site of accidents for hours and either die at the site or while they are being brought to the hospital because of the delay of the bureaucracy.
"Nothing moves until the cops arrive and record a statement and nobody wants to get involved because the police could be after them for a statement."
In the United States, EMS and TCs have been available for decades "and this has significantly reduced mortality and curtailed severe disabilities," he added.
"As we all know, when there is an accident, anybody can dial 911, and in a matter of minutes a fully-equipped ambulance or helicopters manned by trained paramedics arrives and attends to the patient, who gets treatment during transport to the hospital, in the ambulance or while being 'medivaced' (medically evacuated by the chopper) under the guidance of the receiving hospital's physicians. The hospital is also always ready for treating patients because the shock and trauma units are manned around-the-clock by emergency physicians and surgeons."
Before the meeting in Mumbai, Shah also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his principal secretary T K A Nair and Health Secretary Naresh Dayal. They had all spoken to the Maharashtra government officials and not only endorsed the project but also pledged the government's full support to this endeavor.
Khan in his remarks at the meeting said the project was coming to fruition because "the public sector and the private sector have joined hands." He said that once the patient reaches the hospital and is stabilized, then, if necessary, he or she can always be shifted to a public or municipal hospital, "which will reduce the burden on private hospitals." But it was imperative that "the victim be treated by the hospital, irrespective of whether he or she can afford the treatment or not," he added. Once the project gets going "slowly and gradually, many small hospitals will also upgrade themselves and be part of this project," he felt.
Image: Dr Navin Shah (left) presents volumes on trauma, gifted by the American College of Surgeons, to Pramod Lele, CEO of the Hinduja National Hospital for the EMS and TC project for Mumbai, with Dheeraj Hinduja (right).
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