Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare released a communication material comprising First Aid Module for Community, Handbook on Prevention of Accidents and Awareness of First Aid, and a documentary film on the occasion of ‘30th Road Safety Week’ at a function, here today. Speaking at the function, Shri Choubey emphasized on the need for giving medical trauma care to the injured during the first hour of the accident, known as the golden hour for saving the lives of the injured persons. Smt Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health) and Dr. Dr S. Venkatesh, DGHS, and Shri Sanjeeva Kumar (AS), were also present at the event.Shri Choubey stated that road traffic injuries are a growing public health issue, affecting vulnerable groups of road users, including the poor and road traffic injuries place a huge strain on health care services in terms of financial resources, bed occupancy, and demand of health services. He further stated that care of injuries after a crash is of utmost importance, as delays of minutes in delivering care can make a difference between life and death.He said that in order to tackle this growing menace, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) is implementing ‘National Programme for Trauma Care’ with a focus on improving pre-hospital, hospital and rehabilitative services for injury victims. Under the Programme, Trauma Care Facilities are being strengthened in the existing Government Hospitals, near the State and National Highway. During 2017, the total number of road accidents were reported to be 4, 64,910 causing injuries to 4,70,975 persons and claiming 1,47,913 lives in the country. This would translate, on an average, into 53 accidents and 16 deaths every hour, Shri Choubey said.Shri Choubey said that 116 Government Hospitals were identified during 11th FYP for establishing trauma care facilities (L-I=1, L-II= 57 and L-III= 58), out of these, 100 trauma care facilities are fully-functional as reported by the States. During the 12th FYP, 85 Government Hospitals have been identified for strengthening trauma care facilities (L-I=5, L-II=20, L-III= 60) and are in various stages of completion. Government is taking all the initiatives to provide training to the doctors, nurses, paramedics and even to the by-standers on first aid and management of injuries, he stated.Shri Choubey further said that more than 500 Pre-Hospital Trauma Technicians have been trained in the three Central Government Hospitals (Dr. RML Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College) of Delhi. In addition, Advanced Trauma Life Support and Basic Life Support trainings are being imparted for doctors and nurses under the Programme. First Aid training Programmes are also been provided to general Public. Around 250 firefighters and airport rescue staff have been trained at IGI Airport, New Delhi. 800 Medical Officers were also provided First Aid training under the Programme in preparation of the Ardh Kumbh Mela, 2019, he added.Shri Choubey also administered an oath to the officers and staff on road safety and also gave the certificates to ‘Good Samaritans’ for helping the victims of road accidents.The 30th ‘Road Safety Week’ is being observed from 4th to 10th February, 2019. ‘National Programme for Trauma Care’, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) is also observing this Road safety Week by organizing various activities. The purpose of the ‘Road Safety Week’ is to raise awareness about road safety and to encourage common citizen to take action to prevent casualties and make roads safer. One of the pillars of road safety is delivering post-crash care, and make the citizens aware of the basic First Aid to be provided to the accident victims. In this regard, one-day First Aid training programmes are being held at Safdarjung Hospital for 5 days.