The conversation about the carnage on Ghana’s roads dominated the Maiden Annual General and Scientific Congress of the Orthopedic Association of Ghana.

From January to April this year, 1,034 people have been killed on Ghana’s roads. As an association that sees more extremely injured persons in the hospitals, they are sounding the alarm on the need to find means to deal with the menace.

A specialist Orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Holdbrook Smith believes if lawmakers are shown the horrific images of accident victims it may jolt leadership into action following the airing of Seth Kwame Boateng's documentary 'Crushed' on Joy News recently.

"As Orthopedic surgeons, let's go to these people who make the laws and show them the pictures of those horrific injuries that people have. People say that will not be efficient but we have said a lot of things and nothing has changed. So perhaps one of these days we must take pictures of those crushed limbs, horrible injuries and show it to them," he stressed.

As the Healthcare system struggles to cope with rising accident figures, data suggests that more victims of accidents are dying before they get medical help.

According to Professor Robert Quansah who is with the KNUST Department of Surgery, the data suggests that many victims die before arriving at the hospital to receive the needed medical attention.

"In our study, we noticed that 81% of the severely injured die before help could come to them, they died before they got to the hospital."

And perhaps quite surprisingly, there are more accidents happening on properly constructed roads than on poor roads.

Professor Robert Quansah continued that "and we noticed that we had more accidents on paved roads, so one day when one of the investigators came to us and said Dr. Quansah, from your bad roads, you had less injuries now that you have tarred roads, you have more injuries. I wonder, I hope to be proven wrong but if the situation is not going to change, and we have the same attitude, even if we dualize our roads, we will still have increased numbers of victims of accidents."

The Association believes although the effect of road accidents may appear disconnected from the economy, a general improvement of the economy in the country will improve the situation of trauma care for victims.

Dr. Quansah urged the presidential advisor on health to pass their concerns to the president "Dr. Nsiah Asare, please tell our president that improved trauma care can only happen if there is an overall improvement in the economy".

But with over 30 million population, Ghana has only 52 orthopedic surgeons, a situation presidential advisor on health Dr. Nsiah Asare has described as a disaster, urging the College of Physicians and Surgeons to deploy innovative means to train more orthopedic surgeons.

"Road traffic accidents is a very huge burden on Ghanaians and the economy. And as I have said, we need the specialists, it's a specialized area, but as we speak, we have only 52 doctors practicing trauma orthopedic surgery. And it's a worry for a population of 31 million. So if you look at it, it's a disaster. And I have changed the College of Physicians and Surgeons to revamp the training.

The Association would have wished that their maiden general meeting would have been dominated by welfare issues of their members, especially with the imminent threat of a mass exodus of some of their trained members to other countries, but as they elect leaders to steer their affairs, they, like many Ghanaians are concerned about the spate of road accidents and want immediate action.