Ghana’s effort at reducing deaths and disabilities from injuries has taken a giant step forward with the grant of “Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS)” training Charter to the West African country.

It is the 73rd nation to have received the training Charter after successfully conducting a promulgation course at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

With this, “doctors in Ghana can now be trained and certified locally in the use of life-preserving therapies for injured persons”.

ATLS is internationally recognized as a standardized way of treating injured patients to improve outcomes.

A statement issued by the ATLS National Steering Committee, a copy was made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, said the course combines educational formats of lectures, lifesaving skills demonstrations and practical experience applying treatment principles to simulated patients with life-threatening injuries.

It indicated that the mission was to rapidly build capacity for safe and effective emergency care to all injured patients to substantially bring down deaths and disabilities from injury.

The statement said “it is a well-known fact that travel on Ghanaian roads is increasingly risky”, and cited, frequent reports of road crashes.

Figures from the National Road Safety Commission show that 11,378 road crashes were recorded between January and November, last year, which killed 1,990 people.

During the December election period there were 100 crashes with 44 deaths and 112 others left with deep cuts and broken-bones.

The statement said there was therefore greater medical need to institute a systematic approach to rapidly assess and efficiently treat injured patients in the early phase following injury.

This way the care and health outcomes of patients injured in road crashes, from burns, and man-made or natural disasters, could be improved.

The ATLS course was adopted by the American College of Surgeons in 1980 and has since been “exported” to 64 countries worldwide.