PESHAWAR, Sept 22: Speakers at a medical conference here have called upon the government to enforce laws to make wearing of helmets and seat-belts obligatory for drivers.

Terming head injury a ‘silent killer’, the speakers asked the government to acknowledge head injury as a disease and provide basic investigation and treatment facilities to head-injury victims at the district hospitals.

“Most of the head-injury victims happen to be young,” said neurosurgeon Prof Dr Aizaz Ali Shah at the symposium on head injury and its management at the Lady Reading Hospital on Friday.

He said that 5,543 people received head injuries last year. Among them were scores of children who suffered head injuries due to carelessness on the part of parents. Stray bullets, he said, were also among the causes of head injuries.

Of these victims, he said, over 50 per cent were male, more than 37 per cent female whereas 54 per cent of them were below the age of 12. Head injury, he said, was also the cause of psychological problems among survivors who subsequently became burden on their families.

He said that awareness campaigns were required to be launched jointly by doctors, police and non-governmental organisations to put brakes on the number of people falling victims to head injuries due to non-observance of the traffic and driving rules.

Dr Mumtaz Khan said that laws banning driving without helmet were more important because rash driving was a basic reason for surge in the cases of head injuries.

He said there was an urgent need to open driving schools at tehsil and district level. He said introduction of a ‘head injury prevention act’ was the need of the hour to curb the menace and save people from certain deaths or disabilities.

Dr Khan also drew the government’s attention to the shortage of neurosurgeons and called for training of more medical graduate to cater to the demands of growing number of head-injury patients.

Earlier, Dean Postgraduate Medical Institute Dr Arshad Javaid, said that the prompt diagnosis and treatment were required to minimise the casualties caused by injuries.

Dr Mohammad Ilyas said that head injury was the second cause of deaths in developed countries and third cause of deaths in the third-world countries. Dr Lal Rehman and Dr Shahid Ayub also spoke.

Senior Minister Sirajul Haq, speaking as the chief guest, assured doctors of his full support to the head department and said head injury-related medical facilities in the province’s hospitals would be improved.

The government, he said, had already started the process of upgradation of district headquarters hospitals to provide the people health facilities at their doorstep.