Gareth Manning, Gleaner Writer

Residents of Chancellor Hall, the University of the West Indies, at a vigil held in October, in honour of three students who were killed in a car accident in St Mary a week earlier. - Contributed

INJURIES RESULTING from motor-vehicle crashes are costing the health sector hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Last year, there were 14,069 visits to hospitals islandwide for treatment for injuries resulting from traffic crashes.

That is an increase of more than 600 compared to 2006 figures, when hospitals islandwide treated 13,376 injuries caused by road crashes.

Those injuries at the time cost the health sector an estimated $1 billion to treat.

Young people, mostly males between the ages of 20 and 29, continue to be the main victims of road injuries, the Ministry of Health's Injury Surveillance Unit says.

This age cohort accounted for nearly 4,000, or 27.6 per cent, of the total vehicular injuries treated in hospitals.

Dr Eva Lewis-Fuller, acting chief medical officer (CMO) in the Ministry of Health, said the effects of crash-related trauma on the health sector affect more than just the patients involved.

Lewis-Fuller said persons who have been awaiting surgery very often have their appointments rescheduled, as the resources are shifted to assist seriously injured crash victims.

"We really need to control this public-health menace that plagues the health sector," Lewis-Fuller told The Gleaner.

The acting CMO has reminded Jamaicans that drinking and driving are incompatible and urged road users to exercise care, especially as the busy Christmas season approaches.

"With increased care, conscious decision making and consideration on the road, we can go a far way in reducing the incidence of crashes on the road," Lewis-Fuller added.

Besides the risk of death, Lewis-Fuller said crash victims sometimes have to spend months in rehabilitation, many of them trying to walk again or learning to live with their disabilities.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com

Doctors, firemen, policemen and onlookers tend to JUTA bus driver Edgerton Medwynter after he was involved in an accident along the Florizel Glass-pole Highway and got trapped in his bus recently. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer