Speeding leaves trail of human wreckage
As three youths are killed in Sharjah car crash, doctors in Abu Dhabi treat an unprecedented number of head traumas
ABU DHABI AND AL AIN // Hospital staff are witnessing an unprecedented number of patients with significant brain injuries as reckless driving and a culture of speeding takes its toll on the health service and the lives of young motorists.
Surgeons said they were seeing several patients a day with substantial brain trauma in the emirate of Abu Dhabi alone.
Of those, in 80 per cent of cases the patient will either not survive, suffer brain damage, paralysis or permanent disability. In almost all cases, the causes are road accidents.
The capital’s tragedies are not unique – the death of 20-year - old Emirati twins and a 15 yearold in Sharjah yesterday were caused by speeding, police said.
Last week, The National spent several days in trauma units, witnessing the cases medical staff struggle to deal with.
On Wednesday alone, Seha’s Al Ain Hospital received 12 patients with severe brain trauma.
Seha is the company that operates Abu Dhabi and Al Ain’s publicly-owned hospitals.
Each general hospital in the emirate sees two to five such cases per day, said surgeons.
Later, many of the patients are sent to long-stay recovery wards, where about 50, all Emiratis, lie in comas or attached to ventilators.
“In its most devastating form, brain injuries can result in an individual who could be totally dependent on others for care and activities of their daily living for the rest of their life,” said Dr Howard Podolsky, chief of Cambridge Medical and Reha- bilitation Centre, which works with the government hospitals.
“Seatbelts and car seats could reduce, if not prevent, the large number of cases doctors and rehabilitation centres see each day.”
Dr Mohamed Baguneid is consultant vascular surgeon and chairman of the surgical institute at Al Ain Hospital, one the two main trauma hospitals in the emirate.
He said that in one year working at Al Ain Hospital he had seen more torn aortas – the valve attached to the heart – caused by speeding cars smashing into solid objects than he had seen in his seven years at a trauma hospital in the UK.
Often, this injury is suffered when hitting the steering wheel because the driver is not wearing a seatbelt.
“We probably get two to five significant trauma injuries related to traffic accidents on a daily basis,” he said. Seha’s Mafraq Hospital receives more, he said.
“In the UK, I would say somewhere between five and 10 per cent of all the trauma in all the hospitals would be the highend trauma and here I would say somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent is high- end trauma. “The number is almost double, proportion wise. The score is based on severity of the injury.
“When you categorise all the trauma cases, we in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain will see almost twice the proportion of the high-risk injury trauma than we would see in some western healthcare economies.”
According to Health Authority Abu Dhabi (Haad), crash injuries are one of the leading causes of death for children – two out of every three fatalities.
This is about three times the global average.
In spite of concerted efforts by the Government to raise awareness about the importance of children wearing seat belts, Dr Baguneid said the message has been slow to get through to the population.
“The major issue we see are injuries from car rollovers, which are basically related to speed and not wearing a seat belt,” he said.
“This contributes to the severity of the issue.
“A lot of these injuries would be lower scoring had the patients been wearing seat belts and that is probably the difference between UK trauma and UAE trauma in road traffic accidents.
“We do have an issue here with wearing seat belts.”
Two major trauma units will soon open in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.
“Some days we could see about 12 patients a day – nearly half the emergency general surgery workload is trauma related,” said Dr Baguneid. “For sure we need more resources and there is a commitment from Seha to manage major trauma. “We are now getting trauma centres, but in terms of designation and rehabilitation, there is still work to be done. “We are working towards achieving that and becoming level one trauma hospitals in the near future.”