Grey Power November 2019

22
NZ GREYPOWER MAGAZINE » NOVEMBER 2019
Alarming e-Scooters accident
study in the NZ Medical Journal
Research published in the New Zealand Medical Journal
suggests that the e-Scooters are presenting a growing
public health issue. This is a position the Grey Power
Federation has held for some time.
BY DAVID PORTER
Grey Power magazine editor
Safety concerns over e-scooters have
been a hot topic since the ride-share
vehicles arrived on New Zealand's
footpaths in October last year. They were
almost immediately labelled a menace to
pedestrians sharing footpaths, and accidents
and ACC injury payouts have grown
rapidly - topping $4.3 million by July 2019.
They can also be a menace to their riders,
with a 23 year old man recently dying
after receiving critical injuries in an
e-scooter accident. While the death was
the first directly attributed to e-scooters,
the year since their arrival has been punctuated
by headlines of serious injuries –
broken bones and people landing on surgeon's
tables.
The NZMJ article analyses the extent
of the damage being caused by e-scooters.The
report was co-authored by Jacob
Munro, Paul Monk, Alex Campbell, Nicole
Wong and Zaid Bahho, and appeared
in Volume 132, Number 1501, this year.
The writers note that e-scooters have
become a popular mode of transport,
New
particularly since the release of Lime
e-scooters in Auckland and Christchurch.
The electric scooters allow speeds of up to
27km/h on flat surfaces, and greater velocity
when travelling downhill and there
have been multiple articles and television
segments on this new mode of transportation,
which are now available in more
than 100 locations globally.
A growing public health issue
But they write: “It is becoming increasingly
apparent that e-scooters are presenting
a growing public health issue with a rising
cost, both to the individuals themselves
and financially to the New Zealand taxpayer
and healthcare system.”
They aimed to outline the rising burden
of e-scooter injuries and highlight
the high energy trauma possible with
their use. The study involved a retrospective
audit of orthopaedic operations
conducted by the Auckland City Hospital
Orthopaedic Department from 15 October
2018 to 22 February 2019 (when Lime
e-scooters were temporarily suspended
from public use. Emergency department
assessments, ward round notes, operation
notes and discharge paperwork were
all assessed to ascertain the direct cause
of injury resulting in the requirement for
orthopaedic surgery.
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“It is a well-documented
phenomenon that there
is an increased burden
on the healthcare system
following the introduction
of new transport crazes
or gadgets,”
Both acute and elective orthopaedic
operations were included to ensure patients
who had an injury that was either
initially managed non-operatively, or not
suitable for acute surgery and brought
back to an elective list, were not missed.
For the patients who had an injury
noted to be secondary to e-scooters, data
collected included patient demographics,
type of injury, body part injured, surgery
required, length of hospital stay and
number of follow-up clinic appointments
incurred. The number of operations related
to other wheeled vehicles (excluding
cars), such as bikes, skateboards, motorbikes
and mopeds was also collected.
The total cost of the patient’s care was
calculated by totalling the average cost of
hospital stay ($1523 per night), the cost
of using the operating theatre, implant
expenses and the cost of each follow-up
clinic appointment ($264). Keeping the
theatre suite operational and anaesthetic
agents costs $41 per minute of anaesthetic
time. All the staff required costs $152 per
15 minutes of operating time. All expense
dollar amounts used in the study were
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