Poly-trauma, the psychological stress that an individual suffers after an accident, coupled with physical damage to various parts of the body, claims 16,000 lives everyday across the world. This is not a dangerous disease but negligence could lead one to death.

Very little attention is spared to the minor injuries we suffer in case of accidents. But these minor injuries could eventually lead us to the jaws of death and this can take place soon after the accident or still later.

Negligence to small injuries, not visiting a doctor or a hospital in time and blood deficiency could also lead to poly-trauma and physical damage of the body tissue. Road accidents have been taken as the main cause of poly-trauma. It normally takes specialists in different fields to attend to someone suffering from poly-tauma.

A report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1990 showed that Poly-trauma claimed 51 million lives in one year and of the total deaths, 15 percent of them died of poly-trauma.

A WHO-estimate says that the death toll due to poly-trauma will reach 84 million per year by 2020 while the death percentage due to poly-trauma in the same year would be 20 per cent.

The psychological scar that affects the victims slowly affects the individual nibbling him in flashbacks of the fleeting yet intensely painful moment in different mosaics and this is a reason enough to spiral the victim towards an abysmal fear psychosis, leading to other mental and physical problems. And other effects come in various shades, through different times of the victims’ future.

The 1998/99 report of the department of health says that 4909 people in every 100,000 population in Nepal sustain injuries of various kinds and among 100,000 dying of various diseases 96 die of poly-trauma.

Nepal occupies 9th place in the list of countries resorting hospital help to recover after accidents, according to the statistics of the government hospitals. Double this number resort to private hospitals for treatment in case of accidents to evade police investigation and elaborate court cases, which are more of a harassment than justice.

Every year more than 600 people injured in road accidents are admitted to the B P Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) in Dharan. And of the 567 such people admitted to BPKIHS in 1996/97 more than 60 per cent were between 20 to 40 years of age.

As road accidents are the main cause of poly-trauma, a necessity has been felt to raise awareness on the menace i.e. against speed driving which is the reason of 85 per cent of the road accidents.

Meanwhile, taking serious affect of road accidents into consideration, the BPKIHS is planning to run public awareness campaign as well as host an international level symposium on poly-trauma in the Institute on January 3 and 4, next year , said Bijaya Chalise of the BPKIHS, information and public relations department.

In case of accidents, lack of finance for treatment and delay in the arrival of the family members hampers treatment, thereby causing death.