The prize was handed over to the IRF chairman, Kiran Kapila and Susanna Zammataro, IRF executive director at a special ceremony held at The Savoy in London on Tuesday 12th December in the presence of His Royal Highness, Prince Michael of Kent. Since 2015, IRF has undertaken several initiatives to strengthen ‘’pre-hospital’’ trauma care in India by developing skilled, competent and confident First Responders to intervene during the golden hour and increase the survival rate of road accident victims. The Enhanced First Aid for Commercial Drivers (eFD) initiative aims at training drivers to recognise an emergency, call for help and provide a more comprehensive level of pre-hospital care. The programme has already trained 12,000 commercial drivers in India and has now further developed into a certification programme on First Aid Trauma Care extended not only to drivers but also bystanders and people working on road side amenities.
“Given the shortages of ambulances, trained staff, infrastructure, systems and processes for providing emergency response services, the provision of first aid and trauma care to accident victims is often unduly delayed. The result of these delays reflects in higher traffic accident fatality rates in low-income countries. These fatality rates can be reduced if appropriate and prompt first aid and trauma care is provided at the accident site itself” said IRF chairman Kapila.
“We have started with drivers of commercial vehicles as they are ubiquitous users of road networks and witness road crashes from close proximity. They are, thus, potential resources to play a vital role in providing immediate care as well as to transport the injured from the crash site to nearby health care facilities/trauma centres.
“We are delighted to be recognised with what is one of the most prestigious awards in our sector,” continued Kapila.
“The eFD is a straightforward and practical approach, easily replicable in other parts of India and in the rest of the world. We are now ready to scale up the initiative, counting on the precious support of public authorities but also of the private sector” said IRF executive director, Zammataro.
Established in 1987 in the UK, the Prince Michael Award recognises annually achievements and innovation in road safety from around the world. Each year the most outstanding examples of international road safety initiatives are given public recognition through the scheme and the winners are invited to a gala presentation hosted in London.
