Speaker 1: Now, Health Matters with Daniel Martin.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Health Matters right here on CN A 938.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Martin. Thank you so much for joining me
Speaker 1: on today's edition. We're finding out more about the idea
Speaker 1: of a center for trauma. You see what's just happened
Speaker 1: on this Thursday, July 4th in the morning. Uh We've
Speaker 1: seen the opening of the National University Center for Trauma
Speaker 1: and
Speaker 1: I was fascinated to hear how n actually attends to
Speaker 1: something like 1000 300 severe and critical trauma cases every year.
Speaker 1: This includes industrial accidents, pediatric trauma cases, and more to
Speaker 1: address this and of course, the specialty of trauma care
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 1: I was also intrigued to hear about how it's really
Speaker 1: going to focus this, the center on three key groups
Speaker 1: and that's Children, older adults and migrant workers as well.
Speaker 1: I've got with me, the Center director of the National
Speaker 1: University Center for Trauma, the National University Hospital, Dr Raj Mennen,
Speaker 1: joining me on today's edition, Doctor Menon. Welcome to the show. Hello.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having
Speaker 2: me.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on the opening of the center. Is this the
Speaker 1: first of its kind in Singapore I'm curious,
Speaker 2: I think there are many hospitals has managed trauma, but
Speaker 2: I think that's the first time that we have kind
Speaker 2: of centralized and regionalized trauma in such a way looking
Speaker 2: at not just the acute management of trauma, but going
Speaker 2: back all the way to preventing trauma and providing support
Speaker 2: for the patients. Well, after the trauma is over as
Speaker 2: well to kind of give a full spectrum of trauma
Speaker 2: care
Speaker 2: and the National University Health System. And n in particular
Speaker 2: is one of the only full spectrum hospitals looking after
Speaker 2: both adults, Children, obstetric patients, and all of those are
Speaker 2: affected by trauma. So it covers a very wide spectrum
Speaker 2: of patients who get injured daily in Singapore. And this
Speaker 2: is something that we are striving to address,
Speaker 2: not just by terms of treating the patients, but by
Speaker 2: preventing injury in the first place and also for support
Speaker 2: for these patients long after the initial injury is over
Speaker 2: and until they are returned back to families home, the
Speaker 2: community and go on to achieve their dreams.
Speaker 1: That's
Speaker 1: very interesting because I think to a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we assume that trauma care is a very acute situation
Speaker 1: that we're just dealing
Speaker 1: with the trauma of the incident at that point in time.
Speaker 1: But to hear that it can be a very long process,
Speaker 1: I think is fascinating to us. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us didn't realize that.
Speaker 2: Yes. Um we tend to think of trauma. It's just
Speaker 2: that first one hour, 12 hours when they first brought in.
Speaker 2: But the journey just starts. There is true. The first
Speaker 2: hour is extremely critical. That's when we stop bleeding. We
Speaker 2: save the patient's life, restore and repair as much as
Speaker 2: we can.
Speaker 2: But thereafter, the real journey starts the multiple surgeries that
Speaker 2: they would have to undergo the rehabilitation, strong work by
Speaker 2: our rehabil physicians of a physiotherapist, occupational therapists, social workers
Speaker 2: and speech therapists in trying to bring them back to
Speaker 2: where they should be and that they would want to be.
Speaker 2: And this just goes about and that's just about the
Speaker 2: one aspects about the physical health. You also have the
Speaker 2: very significant psychological effect on patients, which can last for
Speaker 2: years after that.
Speaker 2: And when we talk about trauma, it's not just to
Speaker 2: a person is usually to the whole community, their families.
Speaker 2: And especially because trauma affects the young. You can imagine
Speaker 2: breadwinners being affected in the prime of their lives and
Speaker 2: a whole life ahead of them being threatened. And I
Speaker 2: think this, this, this is what motivates us really to
Speaker 2: do whatever we can to get them to where they
Speaker 2: should be and where they want to be after a trauma.
Speaker 2: So the journey goes on for years, many some of
Speaker 2: our patients do and keep on, we keep them on
Speaker 2: our follow
Speaker 2: for a longer term to until we are quite sure
Speaker 2: that they have really overcome all these effects of trauma and,
Speaker 2: and they can go on to achieve their dreams and
Speaker 2: their full potential, the
Speaker 2: rest of their lives
Speaker 1: with such a wide scope that you've just painted out
Speaker 1: for us. It means you really need a very multidisciplinary
Speaker 1: team for their social workers, doctors, everybody.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. In fact, I would say it goes well beyond
Speaker 2: the hospital, one of our key partners is, is the
Speaker 2: Singapore Civil Defense Force and they re engage with them
Speaker 2: regularly to talk discuss about cases, find ways of doing
Speaker 2: things better because that initial period is so important. But
Speaker 2: if I if I did
Speaker 2: you back even further, the best accident is one which
Speaker 2: does not happen, which means that trying to prevent injury
Speaker 2: is probably the key thing here. And that's where a
Speaker 2: data driven approach where we look at our data. And
Speaker 2: we have identified these three groups mentioned geriatric trauma, which
Speaker 2: is our
Speaker 2: largest growing group of trauma, especially with our aging population,
Speaker 2: pediatric trauma, simply because it affects such a vulnerable group
Speaker 2: and in the west because we are very near the
Speaker 2: industrial Heartland of Singapore, the migrant workers and our work
Speaker 2: related accidents, which has granted a lot of media attention recently.
Speaker 2: But certainly that's one these are the key groups we
Speaker 2: are trying to address, which means one of the functions
Speaker 2: of the center is actually reaching out to the community
Speaker 2: by going to active aging centers, preschools,
Speaker 2: primary schools, we just finished a session at one of
Speaker 2: the dormitories in to us where we went and spoke
Speaker 2: to 60 workers and we explained to them what happens
Speaker 2: during a trauma. How do you protect yourself? How do
Speaker 2: you protect your friends who are injured and what will
Speaker 2: happen to you and how Singapore will look after you
Speaker 2: if you are injured to allay some of their fears
Speaker 2: because many of them sold breadwinners for their families back home.
Speaker 2: And suddenly this is an area of great concern for them.
Speaker 2: So I think it all starts there
Speaker 2: on the other spectrum. As you quite rightly said, even
Speaker 2: after the trauma is over, we have a huge role
Speaker 2: to play there after looking at mental and physical health.
Speaker 2: And this is where one of the pillars of our
Speaker 2: new center is a survivorship program, which we started last
Speaker 2: year and that's the nation's first trauma Survivor program.
Speaker 2: And we have 14 of our patients who have recovered
Speaker 2: and they have volunteered to join this program to help
Speaker 2: others who have been injured, to provide support for them
Speaker 2: and their families as well. And really this is when
Speaker 2: we look, we look at trauma, we no longer see
Speaker 2: victims of trauma, but rather we see heroes emerge from
Speaker 2: trauma itself and they sacrifice their journeys they have gone
Speaker 2: through
Speaker 2: is so heartening and inspiring. And it is a real
Speaker 2: testament to how much courage they have exhibited during this
Speaker 2: period of time. And
Speaker 1: so you think the Center
Speaker 1: will shine a spotlight on
Speaker 1: that.
Speaker 2: That's right. So we organize activities every couple of months
Speaker 2: with them, bringing them together and it's so dynamic that,
Speaker 2: you know, when you first brought them together, it's all
Speaker 2: about sharing the experiences. But now that the community has
Speaker 2: been built up, they are looking to, they, they are
Speaker 2: interacting with themselves,
Speaker 2: they are organizing activities for each other and their families
Speaker 2: and more critically, they are also offering support for our
Speaker 2: newly injured patients as well. So some to lend a
Speaker 2: helping hand and a kind of a guide as, as a,
Speaker 2: as a light house for these patients that there is
Speaker 2: hope at the end of the day with work, we
Speaker 2: have faith in the system, faith in yourself and the
Speaker 2: family that you know, there is a brighter day ahead
Speaker 2: and that's what we want, that's what we want our
Speaker 2: patients to feel and so important in their recovery journey
Speaker 2: for them to feel. That
Speaker 1: sounds like a support group in a way,
Speaker 2: in a way. It is a support group. But we're
Speaker 2: hoping to do is not just about mutual support for
Speaker 2: those in the group, but extending beyond to active patients
Speaker 2: who are getting, getting injured and supporting themselves and their families.
Speaker 1: I was also I'm very happy to see that this
Speaker 1: is coalescing in the form of the center and that
Speaker 1: we have this long term mindset about it and shining
Speaker 1: the spotlight on the heroes that emerge and giving back
Speaker 1: and supporting each other in that way as well. But
Speaker 1: the definition of what would qualify as a trauma event
Speaker 1: is so wide, the spectrum can be so absolutely wide.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think most of us, we assume that
Speaker 1: we think of an industrial accident or an accident on
Speaker 1: the road,
Speaker 1: what we saw happen at the junction tragically at Tampines or?
Speaker 1: But would it also include things on a different scale
Speaker 1: like the emergency landing of SQ 312 and the people
Speaker 1: on board and things like that. What is the scope?
Speaker 2: Absolutely. You're quite right. Trauma has a very wide scope.
Speaker 2: I mean, it can go from the most minor of
Speaker 2: injuries to really devastating injuries and it covers the whole
Speaker 2: body head to toe, which is why it's a whole
Speaker 2: team effort. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: I'm a general surgeon and I I handle trauma cases
Speaker 2: and we deal principally with stopping bleeding, controlling injuries in
Speaker 2: the chest and the abdominal area. But I work closely
Speaker 2: with our emergency physicians to stabilize the patients neurosurgeons to
Speaker 2: help with significant brain injuries. Our orthopedic and hand and
Speaker 2: reconstructive surgeons to deal with injuries to the limbs.
Speaker 2: Our alo facial surgeons, our plastic surgeons and our ear,
Speaker 2: nose and throat surgeons and our plastic surgeons to deal
Speaker 2: with injuries in the face and then the whole team
Speaker 2: which comes in, you'll be surprised that when you, when
Speaker 2: we activate a cold trauma, which is a hyper acute
Speaker 2: response for the most critically sick patients in the hospital.
Speaker 2: There are easily about 30 odd people convert
Speaker 2: on a patient. But regardless of the timing of the day,
Speaker 2: it could be at 2 a.m. And when the call
Speaker 2: goes out, we have so many people converging and this
Speaker 2: ranges again, not just the doctors but the nurses, patients,
Speaker 2: patient service associates, our quarters, all of them kind of
Speaker 2: jumping in because the initial period is so so crucial
Speaker 2: and we got to kind of organize
Speaker 2: to make sure that the correct surgeries get done in sequence,
Speaker 2: that the key ones get done first. And it's kind
Speaker 2: of kind of managing and it's like being managing an
Speaker 2: orchestra and conducting this whole process to make sure that
Speaker 2: we deal with injuries that need to be dealt with
Speaker 2: early and the rest we stage it out looking after
Speaker 2: both the body as well as its physiology as well.
Speaker 1: But does that mean that all traffic accidents will fall
Speaker 1: under the trauma care
Speaker 1: center?
Speaker 2: It would, I would say that the majority of injuries
Speaker 2: in Singapore tend to be what we call blunt injuries
Speaker 2: as compared and compared to penetrating injuries, which are usually
Speaker 2: due to stabs or gunshots, which thankfully we don't have
Speaker 2: in Singapore, but we have a large amount of a
Speaker 2: large volume of blunt trauma, principally from faults as which
Speaker 2: can be from any level all road traffic collisions, as
Speaker 2: you rightly said.
Speaker 2: Um and the impact of these injuries can be minor
Speaker 2: or it can go all the way to very severe.
Speaker 2: If you, if you look at the hospitals in the West,
Speaker 2: we look after 50,000 injured patients a year as a
Speaker 2: whole for the whole spectrum of injuries and of which
Speaker 2: about 500 of them are the hyper acute ones a year,
Speaker 2: which these are the ones which are, you know, it's really,
Speaker 2: if you come to the hospital a bit later, your
Speaker 2: life is really going to be threatened. And that's why
Speaker 2: these responses are so important
Speaker 2: to try to bring our patients to the operating theater
Speaker 2: as quickly as possible. Stop the bleeding, stabilize the patient.
Speaker 2: And then we begin the work of reconstructing and repairing
Speaker 2: and restoring the rest of your body and health in
Speaker 2: the coming in the coming days and weeks ahead. So
Speaker 2: it is really a marathon. It is a really long,
Speaker 2: it's a long journey and it doesn't stop on the
Speaker 2: charge from the hospitals, you bring them to our rehabilitation centers,
Speaker 2: you go back to the homes. Community support is very important.
Speaker 2: And um it's uh it's which is why it's such
Speaker 2: a long and important journey. We often don't think about
Speaker 2: all these aspects of trauma. I think of it as
Speaker 2: just the first one hour. But actually it can, it
Speaker 2: can last for months as well in the after effects.
Speaker 2: And that's why having the survivorship program is so important
Speaker 2: to help patients
Speaker 2: peace with this and to give them a the tunnel
Speaker 2: is long, but there is a light at the end
Speaker 2: of the tunnel and we will help you get
Speaker 2: there.
Speaker 1: It's been fascinating learning about the role that this will
Speaker 1: play in the health landscape in Singapore. Congratulations. Once again,
Speaker 1: Doctor Men on the opening of the center. And thank
Speaker 1: you for speaking to my listeners all about it.
Speaker 1: My guest on the program Center, Director of the National
Speaker 1: University Center for Trauma at the National University Hospital. Dr
Speaker 1: Raj Men. Joining us on today's edition of Health Matters.
Speaker 1: Before making any decisions based on the information in our program,
Speaker 1: please consult a medical professional.