Safety first: Delhi sees fewer cracker-related injuries this Diwali

Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, which is the biggest government hospital in East Delhi, had no admissions in their burns unit on Sunday.

Hospitals in Delhi received fewer cases of burns on Sunday night, as compared to previous years.

Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, which is the biggest government hospital in East Delhi, had no admissions in their burns unit on Sunday. (AP)

“The severity of the burn cases that came to us was less. 80 patients came to our hospital yesterday; most of them just needed first-aid. Even the two people who were admitted did not have very serious burns and would be discharged within a couple of days,” said Dr JC Passey, medical director of Lok Nayak hospital.

Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, which is the biggest government hospital in East Delhi, had no admissions in their burns unit on Sunday. “We had about a 100 patients who came in for first-aid. There were no eye or ear injuries. This year there is a definite drop in the numbers, we had 6 -7 admissions last year,” said Dr Sunil Kumar, medical director of the hospital.

At Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, there was a drop of nearly 50%. “This year we got 57 burn cases and 1 admission. In comparison, the hospital received around 100 cases last year, of which 12 required admission,” said VK Sinha, hospital spokesperson.

Safdarjung hospital, which has one of the largest burns unit in the country, received 142 cases of cracker-related injuries, of which 11 had to be admitted. It was the only hospital where the numbers were higher than the previous year, when 120 people had landed in the emergency.

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Private hospitals also did not receive too many cracker injury cases this year. A total of 21 cases were reported from four Fortis Hospitals, of which 12 were reported from Noida.

Children seem to have stayed away from crackers this time, and this brought down the number of injury cases, doctors said.

“The downward trend in cracker-related injuries for the last couple of years can be attributed to public awareness. Mostly children stay away from crackers, majorly due to efforts of schools. In fact, most of the people who came to Lok Nayak with cracker injuries were adults,” said Dr Passey.

Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, Delhi governemnt’s paediatric super-speciality hospital in East Delhi, received 2 minor burn cases, which did not require admission. “We cater only to children and we have been receiving less cases for the last three or four years,” said Dr Anoop Mohta, medical director of the hospital.

However, cases of respiratory tract infections have seen a jump over the past one week.

“This is a yearly trend, the numbers increase because of the drop in temperature that increases the concentration of pollutants in the air and seasonal changes. The pollution level go up further during the festive season because of vehicular emissions,” said Dr Mrinal Sircar, director of pulmonary medicine at Fortis hospital, Noida.