Bad roads

FOR Nigerian road users, it is a tragic case of double jeopardy: generally bad roads, and even worse driving culture, have turned the roads into constant killing slabs. Yet, those highways are seldom equipped with trauma and emergency facilities, to cope with the casualties.

But for the intervention of the National Health Act of 2014, which Section 20(1) prescribes a N100, 000 fine or six months in jail — or both — for any medic or health establishment that refuses, “for any reason” an accident patient emergency treatment, it could well have been treble jeopardy. For now, however, that would appear cold comfort, given the lag between promulgating a law and its full enforcement.

Dr. Deola Philip and her Trauma Care International Foundation (TCIF), at their 2019 Trauma Conference, with the theme: “Trauma Care, the way forward”, just drew Nigerians’ attention to their gory road culture, and the stiff costs in lives and limbs: 200, 000 deaths; more than four million injuries, yearly, from auto crashes alone!

These figures are huge and sobering, to be sure. But with entrenched reckless driving culture, despite the striving of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and other state traffic control agencies nationwide to rein in the blight, it is even some wonder the casualty figures are not higher than that.

Structurally, much of the blame goes to the government, at all levels, for the parlous state of the roads. Due to disinvestment for too long on roads, much, if not most of it caused by diversion and embezzlement of budgeted funds, the roads are in abject disrepair. If the basic roads are in a sorry state, it would be sheer magic to expect the additional facilities, that make our roads emergency response and trauma-compliant, to be in place.

Ibrahim Oloriegbe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, laid the roads bare, at the TCIF conference: “Majority of highways in Nigeria are without plans for emergency rescue operations, either by state or non-state actors.  Moreover, when such emergencies happen and evacuation takes place through help of individuals close to the scene of the accident or the emergency situation, the bureaucracy at most hospitals and health institutions may pose obstacle to saving the endangered lives.”

This pressing challenge, of road emergency readiness, and post-accident trauma care in health centres, are a twin-challenge the government must face without much ado; aside from radically improving general road decay.

The TCIF is also spot-on, on the need for a more responsive health care infrastructure, fully primed to saving lives; and offering quality care to the traumatised. The 2019 conference, Philip declared, was to “generate answers innovatively, which can be tailored to every level in the health care system; accelerate support for the existing health care structures in a robust, comprehensive and enduring fashion; fast-track education and advocacy for these in a sustainable manner; and reawaken in health care providers, the essence of being a stakeholder in trauma care and emergency response, which remains saving lives every day.”

Indeed, the imperative of fixing the roads, adding trauma infrastructure and galvanizing the health sector for prompt treatment of crash patients can never be overstressed.

Still, prevention is always better than cure; and that is why road accident preventive measures must be pursued, even more than post-crash care. Also crying for urgent fixing is a poor driving culture, which appears to have defied all solutions. Here, the regulatory agencies hold the ace. They should succumb less to corruption in the basics: granting drivers licences, for instance.

Perhaps nothing is more abused than that in the motoring chain. The regulators must realise that fraudulently certifying an incompetent driver is tantamount to unleashing a lunatic on the driving community. It never ends well.

Then, the government must impose stringent standards in vehicle maintenance, failure of which should attract stern penalties, including seizure of offending vehicles. Haulage firms should also be made to comply with universally established driving stress codes: the maximum hours a trucker can drive at a stretch, before having compulsory rest. Fatigue from endless hours of driving, over long distances, account for much of road crashes, many of them fatal.

Then, the all vital alcohol test, to enforce non-drunk driving. The FRSC has launched a blitz of public enlightenment to force this vital driving behavioral change. It should not relent, until a change is forced and sustained.

The roads are not slaughter slabs and, with strict regulations and improved road conditions, Nigeria’s accident rate can go down by 90 per cent — or even more.  It’s an ideal everyone should work towards.