Birthday milestone: Advancing trauma care

Since 1990, The Alfred’s trauma program has gone from strength to strength – admitting more than 250,000 injured patients, including 18,000 with potentially life threatening conditions.

Emergency and Trauma Centre director, Dr de Villiers Smit said that every three hours a patient arrives at The Alfred – by air or road – with a potentially life threatening condition.

“We have an incredibly busy trauma program, and our staff are considered world experts in stabilising patients who arrive with multiple life threatening injuries,” Dr Smit said.

“In 1990 we were receiving four critically ill trauma patients each week while, today, we see an average four each and every day at The Alfred.”

The Alfred’s director of Trauma Services, Professor Mark Fitzgerald said although technology will play a role in helping patients to recover from car accidents, assaults and burns injuries, it’s the skill of Victoria’s emergency and trauma specialists, and the continued effort to ensure medical help can begin quickly, that will continue to save the most lives.

“Trauma is now a speciality – and our response is unique and works because it is led by people with a strong in interest in trauma care,” Prof Fitzgerald said.

“The Alfred is a world leader in trauma care because of our ability to innovate, our sharing of knowledge and our effort to measure the outcomes of our work.

“Victorians are fortunate to have a trauma system that is the envy of many other parts of the world, with more patients surviving and returning to independent lives.”