Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government on Thursday decided to draw up a comprehensive trauma care program to ensure emergency medical assistance for road accident victims.

The decision was taken at a high level meeting chaired by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan here.

As part of the initiative, advanced trauma care facilities would be launched in the government medical colleges, district and taluk hospitals and major private medical care institutions.

A slew of relief programs, including meeting the initial treatment expenses of the accident victims by the government itself is under consideration, an official statement said here.

Emergency medical assistance would be ensured to each accident victim without charging money from them for the next 48 hours after they are admitted to the hospital, it said.

"The government will give away the amount for emergency treatment within the initial 48 hours. The plan is to collect the amount back from insurance companies concerned," the statement said.

The chief minister would conduct a discussion with various insurance companies and a detailed plan in this regard would be drawn up after that, it said.

"Treatment should not be denied to any accident victim, brought to hospitals. The practice of providing treatment based on the financial capacity of victims should end," Pinarayi said.

The chief minister also directed the private hospitals to meet the victims' initial treatment expenses from the Road Safety Fund.

Specially designed ambulance with advanced facilities would be launched to rush accident victims to the nearby hospitals at the earliest, official sources said.

A separate software would be developed to ensure the availability of ambulance and to choose the nearby hospitals and a centralized call center would be set up to manage all information in this regard, they said.

The trauma care facility would be launched using Kerala Road Safety Fund and the social responsibility fund of Kerala State Road Transport Project along with the budget allocations in this regard.

The secretaries of various departments including health, home, finance, transport and public works are entrusted to implement the program on a time-bound manner, sources added.

Besides chief minister, health minister K. K. Shylaja and secretaries of various departments also attended the meeting.

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