Docs burn up with fear over growing burn injury cases
Surgeons and doctors have expressed concerns over increasing burn injury cases and its improper handling, especially in low-and middle-income countries.
Experts from more than 10 countries, who are taking part in a seminal meeting in Kathmandu, said many burn injury deaths are preventable if a proper guideline and policy is enacted.
“While Nepal tops the list of 10 countries that includes America and Britain having highest fire related deaths, India has the highest fire incidents,” Dr Tom Potokar, director of the Interburns, a charity foundation of burn care professionals, told the Post on Tuesday.
Dr Potokar also said that in the four-day meeting a draft of guidelines for management of burn cases in low and middle income countries has been prepared. “The guidelines will not only benefit Nepal but it will do good to other low income countries.”
Similarly, Dr RP Chaudhary, surgeon at Kanti Children’s Hospital, said he has found the government serious on the burn issue. “The government has a rule that every medical college should have five beds for burn injuries and it is being implemented so far.”
“However, the government has to form a mechanism wherein the burn victims could at least get a first aid right from the Primary Health Care (PHC) centres.”
In Nepal, a person with 40 percent of burn injury dies, whereas in a developed country, patients with 80 percent of their body burnt still have a high chance of surviving, read a press statement of the Interburns.
Bir Hospital and Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital are handling major burn cases while Kanti Children Hospital looks after paediatric burn cases. However, participation of private hospitals in handling burn cases is minimal.
According to the WHO, women from the South-east Asia account for 26 percent of the global fire deaths and in Nepal annually 1,700 people succumb to burn injuries.
The UN health body also says that in rural Nepal burn injuries are the second most common injury and also among the estimated 8 percent of the disabled population of the country, 5 percent of the disability were due to burn injuries.
Posted on: 2012-01-25 07:28
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