NUMBER of new road accident victims who seek bone treatment daily at the Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute (MOI) has dropped by 40 per cent in the past one year.
Last year, the Institute was receiving 10 new patients suffering from bone damages as results of road accidents, daily.
According to Dr William Ngisha, a surgeon at MOI, the institute currently receives six such patients, daily.
However, Dr Ngisha called for intensified road safety campaigns to further reduce the accidents and victims in the country.
Dr Ngisha said most of victims arrived at the institute were those engaged in motorcycle accidents.
“MOI receives up to six road accident victims daily, most of whom suffer serious bone injuries. There is a need to capitalise on road safety education if we are to rescue Tanzanians and reduce treatment costs,” the surgeon said recently in Dar es Salaam during a public campaign on road safety principles.
Dr Ngisha said treating bone injuries was very expensive, and therefore called upon motorists and motorcyclists to be careful to avoid accidents which have been leading to disabilities.
“Most of the casualties visiting MOI include motorcycle riders, passengers as well as pedestrians who are hit by the speeding motorcycles,” he revealed.
He also noted that the cost for the bone treatment is more than 1m/- per person, therefore more education is needed to the public.
Acting Kinondoni Regional Traffic officer (RTO) Rose Maira recalled that national statistics indicate that deaths from road accidents have decreased by 20 per cent in the past one year due to increased road safety awareness campaigns.
“More road safety campaign is still needed and we will soon introduce special desks aiming at reducing road accidents,” said Maira.
For his part, Chairperson of the Road Safety Ambassador (RSA) Tanzania, Mr Asian Omari, said the streets should be safe so as to achieve the target of ending death resulting from road accidents by 2030.