Ministry of Health warns increase in mortality in traffic accidents

In 2019, the Ministry of Health signed the 'Road Safety Pact for Children and Adolescents in Colombia', also signed by the National Road Safety Agency, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Education, Police, Department of National Planning, Business Committee for Road Safety, and the Special Envoy of Nations United States for Road Safety.

With this agreement, it is hoped that road events are understood and addressed is intersectorality, since the Health portfolio considers that “road safety is considered a public health problem, given the human lives lost due to preventable events, as well as the sequelae or injuries they generate, a situation with broad social impact and economic”.

Despite this commitment, the health portfolio warned on March 23 that the problem of road accidents and mortality continues to affect Colombia and must be addressed from different sides, as stated by Germán Escobar, Deputy Minister of Public Health and Service Provision.

He added that good joint work is being carried out in the country, which contributes and provides spaces for discussion where it is addressed in an intersectoral manner, “in this way, the actions of the health sector are capitalized or have a much better support to influence and contribute.”

Escobar explained the three lines of action being carried out by Minsalud. The first is associated with raising awareness of infrastructure and safety features in public and private transport.

However, he acknowledged the domestic particularities, including cultural, social and topographical aspects of the country, “which must be addressed in an intelligent and innovative way, because in many territories the transport system is not the four-wheeled motor vehicle, but a bicycle or a motorcycle and, in that order, ideas, we need to start addressing it differentially.”

The second line of work - said the vice health - is the preparation of pre hospital and hospital care professionals, which allows the sequelae to be reduced when an accident occurs, “that is secondary and third prevention and it is very important because it also prevents deaths”.

When a road event occurs, a risk materializes; but it can be addressed in a timely manner with quality care to avoid sequelae, which can be as serious as severe disability or death.

To meet this preparation of human talent in health, the Ministry has a specific unit to address emergencies, the Emergency and Disaster Unit, composed of a team that is responsible for the preparation of health professionals in pre-hospital, hospital care and treatment of sequelae.

“This is being done with a model of care that we are trying to transform, a model that is much closer to people, of primary health care, that is more decisive and not all cases reach third levels of care, in which time is lost and opportunities for care are lost,” he said.

Meanwhile, the third line, which has to do with the second, is a system of medical emergencies that is resolving and quickly responding to cases when a claim and injury occur.

“95% of road accident or road accident injuries occur in low- and middle-income countries. It's dramatic. When we have those injuries, we have to deal with them quickly,” Escobar stressed.

For this reason, Minsalud is entering a second phase of strengthening the Emergency Medical System in Colombia, which, although it has made successful progress in category I municipalities, special municipalities and districts, this year begins in category II municipalities and those with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

“We have to generate greater capacities, training human talent, local government entities, local ecosystem actors, and that is what we are doing, strengthening that Emergency Medical System and we go hand in hand with the National Road Safety Agency,” he said.

In Colombia in 2021, according to figures from the Road Safety Observatory of the National Road Safety Agency, there were 7,067 fatalities. After motorcycles and pedestrians, cyclists are the most vulnerable actor.

In terms of mortality among children and adolescents, there was a 23% reduction in road accidents from 2018 to 2020. However, between January and June 2021, 96 children under 15 died in the country, 20 more than in the same period in 2020, an increase of 26.32%.

On average, in the years 2018-2020, 437 people aged 0 to 18 died nationwide, with motorcycle users being the most deceased road user in this age group, representing 46% of the total number of fatalities caused by road accidents in the population of children and adolescents.

The departments that account for 40% of this problem in the last three years are: Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Cesar, Cundinamarca and Santander.

According to data from the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, the second leading cause of mortality due to external factors among children and adolescents is road accidents.

Given this scenario, it is necessary to create multisectoral and comprehensive strategies for the prevention of injuries in children and adolescents, as they have done in high-income countries, with these strategies achieving a reduction in incidence by almost 50% in the last three decades.

“As a health sector, it is our interest to contribute to the minimization of risk factors and the reduction of morbidity and mortality related to road accidents, generating policies, plans, strategies and guidelines that allow us to carry out population and collective interventions in the settings, with a high importance in coordination and intersectoral management, the basis for the comprehensiveness and efficiency of the actions carried out in the territories”, concluded the deputy minister.

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