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IHS-Public Health
Symposium
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Sheilding
our Children from Accidents |
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World Health Day -
7 April, 2003
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This year’s
Public Health Symposium highlighted the top risk factors responsible
for accidents in Indian children, - falls, fires, and road traffic
accidents. |
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The
symposium brought together top paediatricians and injury experts who
engaged in deliberations to shield our children from accidents. |
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Session
1 - Inaugural
Session |
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Session 2
- A Child’s Fall may Crash
Parents' hope |
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Session 3 - Ignite
Effort and Mitigate Fires |
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Session 4
- How Safe is our School Transport? |
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Session 5 -
Valedictory Session
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Inaugural Session |
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Dr.
Prasanta Mahapatra, Director, IHS, invited the Chief Guest, Dr.
Thakur V. Hari Prasad, Founder - President, Thakur Hari Prasad
Institute of Research and Rehabilitation for the Mentally
Handicapped. Dr. Mahapatra said that the basic idea of the institute
was the multi-disciplinary approach. He said that IHS is a
voluntary, non-profit organisation, set up by a group of public
health professionals. He said that for the last twelve years, IHS
faculties, fellows, associates, have worked hard to raise revenue
basically through sponsored research, training programmes,
publications, and public services.
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Dr. P.
Hrishikesh, Chairman, IHS, invited the guests, the galaxy of medical
specialists, surgeons, senior police officers, and members of the
press. He said that India is the country where we have more number of
accident deaths and morbidity. He said that educating the drivers is
very important.
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Dr. Thakur V.
Hari Prasad, President, Thakur Hari Prasad Institute of Research and
Rehabilitation for the Mentally Handicapped, said that child health
has to be looked at wholistically from 0-16 years of age of child, and
that inputs should be given to the Planning Commission for
incorporation in the National Health Planning process. He said that
child development should shift to human development through community
involvement.
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A
Child’s Fall may Crash Parents' hope |
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Dr. Dinakar, Consultant Neuro Surgeon, chaired the
session. Dr. N.C.K. Reddy, Prof. & HOD, Pediatric Surgery,
Niloufer Hospital gave a presentation on "Accidental Falls in
Children: Prevention and First Aid". Globalization and
urbanization pose great risks to children. There is a need for
providing child friendly, accident free environment. The child can be
exposed to risks at high roof buildings, parapet walls while flying
kites and in water tanks etc. Unfinished buildings are a high risk to
children.
Dr. Shakuntala Lavasa, Pediatrician from Chandigarh
presented on "Household Risks of Injury and Saving our
Children". She mentioned that nearly half of the deaths in
children (1-14 yrs) are due to unintentional injuries. Prevention is
possible if injury is conceptualized as a disease, having interplay of
agent, host and environmental factors. She mentioned that prevention
is a multispecialty approach. Pediatricians can play a role in giving
individual advise to the parents, and public health agencies must make
injury prevention a priority through active and passive interventions.
Mr. Ch. Srinivas, Asst. Professor in Architecture, JNTU School of
Architecture, presented on "Child safety issues in building
design". He mentioned that stair cases should be designed
basing on the child's anthropometric measurements. Usually falls in
children occur in staircases. He mentioned about sill heights, door
stoppers, skirting, lifts, electric sockets, latches and how they lead
to child accidents. |
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Ignite
Effort and Mitigate Fires |
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Dr. D. L.N Prasad, Professor Emeritus in Plastic
Surgery, Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad was the
chairperson of this session. Dr. G.V. Sudhakar, Professor and Head Of
the Department (Plastic Surgery), Osmania General Hospital, presented
on "How children end up with serious burns? Experiences from
the Osmania General Hospital". He showed statistics from the
Osmania General Hospital during the last year which reveals that 157
children were admitted with major burn injuries out of a total
admissions of 1280 patients with burn injuries. He emphasised that
most of burn accidents are preventable. Timely and proper treatment
results in better survival rates and any delay in the availability of
services increases the mortality, complications and deformities.
Dr. D. Mohan Krishna, Professor and Head of the Department (Plastic
Surgery), Gandhi General Hospital presented on "First aid and
treatment for burns in children. How do we minimise the damage and
maximise recovery?" The highest number of burn injuries in
children are scalds because of hot liquids. In most of the cases the
injury is superficial in nature, and it is a must for all of us to
provide first aid by pouring cold water during burns. The best way to
prevent burns in children is by education, social upliftment, adopting
safe kitchen practices, etc. |
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How
Safe is our School Transport? |
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Dr.
D.T.Nayak, Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Hyderabad, was
the session chair. He stated that nearly 80,000 people die of road
traffic accidents and around 1.6 lakh people become partially or
totally disabled every year in India. It results in mammoth economic
loss to the nation. Correspondingly, there are about 9,500 deaths and
almost 30,000 injuries in Andhra Pradesh. In Hyderabad, there are
about 3,000 accidents and 400 deaths every year. Dr. Nayak assured
that more zebra crossings would be created keeping in view the
pedestrian needs. He announced that Traffic Parks for children would
be soon set up and that Pelican signals would be introduced in
Hyderabad on an experimental basis.
Dr.Gautam Chatterjee, Writer & Journalist from Delhi, gave a
presentation on "Communicating Road Safety to Children". He
maintained that if children are taught about the necessity and
importance of road safety at the right age, they will in turn teach
the future generation the importance of road safety more effectively.
He opined that road safety has become a lost heritage in India. He
stated that pedestrians account for 70 percent of road accident cases
in India. According to him, pedestrians which include children are at
no stage given priority while contemplating on traffic management. |
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Valedictory
Session |
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Dr.
Hrishikesh, Chairman, IHS, was the chairperson of the valedictory.
Padma Shri Dr. G. N. Rao, Director, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute,
Hyderabad was the honorable Chief Guest for the programme.
Dr. Mahapatra, Director, IHS welcomed Dr. G. N. Rao and Dr.
Hrishikesh. He briefed Dr. Rao about the proceedings of the day-long
sessions on different topics and highlighted the risk factors viz.,
Falls, Burns and Road Traffic Accidents. Dr. Hrishikesh then stressed
the need for educating parents, especially mothers.
Dr. G.N. Rao emphasized on collective efforts by all constituents
of the community. He stressed that only one part of community cannot
bring a change. He said that there are three requisites i.e. reliable
information, planned strategies and implementation of strategies for
success of any programme. To correct the problems, we need to improve
our medical education with due emphasis on public health. At the end
of the session, Dr. Mahapatra, Director IHS, proposed the vote of
thanks |
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Click
here for photo gallery |
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