There has been a national concern regarding road traffic injuries in the country. Motorcycles constitute a high proportion of fatalities in road traffic crashes. Commercial motorcyclists (Okada) constitute a unique group in this regard.
According to statistics from the Korle-Bu Emergenecy and Orthopaedics department, about forty (40) accident victims are transferred to the hospital emergency unit on a daily basis.
Dr. Fredrick Kwarteng, head of accident, emergency and Orthopaedics department revealed that “some of the accident victims come with blood in their head, others come with severe damage in the brain and others come in as a result of the head injury, become permanent blind”
Dr. Kwarteng continued that “we had instances where they had injuries in all parts of the body and broke all bones”
He said the accident, emergency and Orthopaedics department averagely about forty (40) accident victims in a day.
“They are brought in with varying degrees of injury, there are a significant number of them whom we have to admit and some of them stay on the wards up to about three (3) months because some of the degrees of injury require multiple surgeries”.
Dr. Kwarteng however added that “the biggest challenge when it comes to managing accident victims is the financial cost. A number of them come from poor families and resources become a challenge. In fact, in some situations, by the time they are discharged, they don’t even have money to pay for their hospital bills; there are huge numbers of them that have had to refer to social welfare department”.
See Photos of Okada accident victims below. [Viewers Discretion is Advised]
