Amidst the light and noise of Deepavali celebrations on Wednesday, hospitals saw dozens of patients, mostly children, come in with cracker-related injuries.
However, doctors say the number of injuries this year was fewer compared to previous years, possibly, because the rains hampered the bursting of crackers and also due to better awareness on safety and pollution.
At Government Kilpauk Hospital, where most burns cases are referred, 33 cases of burns were seen over the last three days as out-patients. Most of them had one to two per cent burns, said J. Jaganmohan, head, burns and plastic surgery department. Three cases however, were serious and admitted for treatment. “One was a man with 40 per cent burns who said a rocket fell on him and his clothes caught fire. Another was a man with 22 per cent burns suffered after a spark lit up a table full of firecrackers that then exploded,” he said.
The Government Ophthalmic Hospital Egmore saw around 40 patients come in with injuries such as corneal tears, lid tears and foreign objects lodged in their eyes. “Most were onlookers, and had been hit by hard particles that seem to be in the firecrackers, especially bombs and rockets,” said K. Namitha, director.
Both Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital and Apollo Children’s Hospital saw fewer cases than usual. “We had only 30 cases this year, compared to 120 last year,” said S. Soundari, senior consultant at Dr. Agarwal’s.
According to data with the Chennai city police, the total number of burn cases in Chennai this year was 56, against 58 last year and 135 in 2012.
Indira Jayakumar, senior consultant, emergency and intensive care at Apollo Children’s, where two cases came in, said, “There has been a lot of focus on safety in the last few years and also parents and children are now environment-conscious and want to pollute less. These factors could have led to fewer injuries this year.”
However, GVK EMRI, which runs the 108 ambulance service, recorded its highest number of calls in a single day in the State on Wednesday, with 3,413 emergency cases, as against 3,024 last year. They received 22,000 calls, and 148 people called the ‘104’ health helpline, said B. Prabhudoss, head, marketing and hospital relations, GVK EMRI.
However, he clarified, “Most of these were trauma-related injuries. The emergencies have not increased, the awareness of services has. Safety programmes conducted by the State health department and the TN Health Systems Project also helped.”
