Medical triage : ‘Integrated management system needed’

Bombers are now making explosives to cause more destruction: experts.


April 04, 2011

KARACHI:


Over 2,000 people died and nearly 3,650 were injured in bomb blasts in Pakistan between 2000 and 2011.


These numbers highlight the need for Pakistan to have an “integrated medical management system” to reduce the intensity of the loss, according to experts.

“The nature of bomb blasts has also changed and [now] improvised explosives are being used,” said orthopaedic surgeon Prof Dr Saeed Minhas, who is an expert in trauma medicine. “Previously there were letters and parcels or cycles fitted with bombs, followed by suicide bombers with backpacks and jackets, and then came the improved, homemade explosives, causing severe harm,” he explained.

Explosives made from nitro-glycerine, dynamite, plastic, ammonium nitrate, fuel oil and other hazardous chemicals have proven to be extremely fatal. “Unfortunately, we have yet to develop a system under which our medical personnel are trained to identify and handle hidden patterns of injuries,” he said.

In a span of four years, Karachi experienced 24 bomb blasts that killed 358 people and injured 1,128 others. Dr Minhas recalled the first major attack in 1987 at Bohri Bazaar in Saddar.

There is an urgent need to develop coordination among the law-enforcement agencies, the medical community, and volunteers and ambulance services, he stressed.

Suggesting ways to improve first-aid procedures, Dr Minhas said that, “all those brought dead with black cards placed on them must be shifted directly to the mortuary so that the injured are attended to immediately”.

All hospitals must have a flow chart in their emergency wards with special attention towards anticipation, back-up, communication set-up, dangers and equipment.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th,  2011.

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