'Poor handling of accident victims is leading to more deaths'

Professional drivers have called on the government to put more emphasis on training the traffic police and the public on the post accident handling of accident victims.

According to the annual police report for 2018, there were 12,805 reported accidents in the country which led to the death of 3194 people.

Of these, 5245 accidents were reported in the Kampala metropolitan area where 665 people died.

These remarks were made over the weekend during the commemoration of world Day Traffic Victims in Kampala organised by Uganda Professional Drivers Network.

Charles Edeun,the co-driver Uganda Professional Driver Network, said many of the people that survive accidents die as they are being transported to health facilities.

He said one way of reducing the deaths of the victims before reaching different health facilities is for the government to train the police and ordinary people on how to handle accidents victims during transportation.

Nasifah Kasule from world Health Organisation said the nation doesn't have strong response unit even in the hospitals due to lack of equipment.

"They are not well quipped to handle victims when they are there but what kills the victims most is unsafe transport and also traffic police doesn’t not have a response unit department ,"she said.

Norman Musinga, the police Traffic Police Commander Kampala Metropolitan said the police lacks necessary equipment to support accidents victims which has also put the lives of many police officers at risk.

“Sometimes we are forced to improvise the equipment to be used at the scene of an accident and several officers of ours have been falling a victim of circumstances as results of these accidents,"he said.

The minister for Kampala Beti Kamya called for enforcement of tougher punishments for errant drivers such as suspension or withdrawal of driving licenses as a way of reducing on the number of road accidents.

“There are punitive measures which are provided for in the law but we hardly use them. Let us take away somebody's driving permit if that is the job that puts food on the table. If you take away that permit for six months, he will take that job seriously when he gets his license back,”she said.