Medicolegal Aspects during Mass Casualty Due to Road Traffic Accidents in the Era of Covid: A Tertiary Care Institutional Experience

Abstract

Background: In March 2020, the world health organization declared COVID-19 a world wide pandemic.
Countries introduced public health measures to contain and reduce its spread. The effect of mandated societal
lockdown to reduce the transmission of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on road traffic accidents is not
known. For this we performed an in-depth analysis singdata of emergency and trauma centre UPUMS, Saifai.
As most of the manpower was involved in managing Covid patients directly or indirectly, it was a challenge to
manage these mass casualty patients who require intensive care as well as Medicolegal documentation , record
keeping , Consent for life saving procedures in absence of Relatives.
Materials and Methods: We reviewed data on total 2876 road traffic accident records in UPUMS, Saifai from
January 1, 2020 through September 30, 2020. We treated March 20th as the first day of mandated societal lock down
and 1st July as the first day of re-opening.
Results: We have found that the reis increase in road traffic accidents resulting in serious or fatal injuries during
lockdown and post-lockdown period. There was increased Medicolegal burden in spite of the decreased medical
resources, manpower as most of manpower and resources were being utilized for covid patients.
Conclusion: Road traffic accidents are a prominent contributor to hospitalization and may negatively impact the
existing hospital resources directed towards COVID-19.