Road accidents the cause of 25% of trauma cases

A QUARTER of all patients with serious bodily injuries admitted to a Dublin hospital over a three-year period were road accident victims.

New figures from the trauma register at Beaumont Hospital show one-in-four patients admitted for three days or more between 2003 and 2005 were treated following road accidents.

Victims of sports injuries made up just 9% of trauma admissions. In total, 258 trauma cases were admitted following road accidents, compared to 87 patients with sports injuries.

A&E consultant at Beaumont Patricia Houlihan, who presented the figures at the inaugural Irish Motoring Writers Association seminar last night, said their analysis showed the majority of patients admitted following road accidents were young males.

“It is a disease of the young, predominantly male, driver, involving single vehicle incidents, resulting in more serious injuries and significant periods of time in hospital.

“The public’s focus is on deaths but international evidence suggests for every one fatality, three to four people are injured, often seriously, resulting in lifelong disability for some.”

The Beaumont audit shows road accidents were the second largest cause of trauma admissions at the hospital between 2003 and 2005.

Simple falls - involving falls of less than two metres - were the main cause of trauma admission, but injuries were minor compared to the road accident victims.

The figures also show that the number of admissions to the hospital for three or more days following road accidents last year was nearly twice the number of admissions for assaults. Up to 60% of road accident admissions were people aged between 17 and 40, with male admissions more common up to the age of 40.

Dr Houlihan said more than half of patients admitted following road accidents were “severely injured” but this figure was driven up by the number of neurosurgical patient transfers to Beaumont. Injuries were “multisystem”, she said, to areas such as the head, thorax and femur.

Dr Houlihan said there was a need for a national trauma database to log a range of data from severity of injury, to length of time in hospital, to patient outcomes, including after discharge from hospital.

Separately, Swedish trauma expert Dr Per Örtenwall said road fatalities will double by 2020.

Speaking at the seminar, Dr Örtenwall said novice drivers account for 20% of fatalities.

Citing World Health Organisation statistics, Dr Örtenwall said worldwide road fatalities will have doubled to 2.3 million per year over a 22-year period to 2020.