Expert calls for better burn prevention
February 8, 2006Australia is not doing enough to prevent burn injuries, with over 200,000 people being accidentally burned, 20,000 taken to hospital and 115 dying from burns every year, says Dr Peter Maitz, Medical Director of the Burns Unit at Concord Hospital in Sydney.
The most common causes of burns are hot water, ovens, stoves, open fires, heaters, matches and power points. Children and the elderly are the most affected and over 25 per cent of hospital admissions are made up of infants. Men also seem to be a risk group as there are 50 per cent more of them being seriously burnt than women.
New program to provide a rural perspective
In rural and remote Australia, burn injuries can be especially serious because the specialised medical help is so far away. This is why the Australian Government Department of Health & Ageing has sponsored a Rural Health Education Foundation television program called Burn Injury: Rural Perspectives, which is being presented by Dr Fiona Wood, Head of the Royal Perth Hospital’s Burn Unit and the 2005 Australian of the Year on Wednesday 22 February.
“When I’m about to see a person from the country, I know they’ve been rushed to Sydney by air and that the burn is going to be really bad. Burns cause horrific injuries. We as a society need to become more burns aware. We’re working on new treatments but prevention is the key,” Dr Maitz says.
According to Dr Maitz, who helped put the program together, “one immediate thing that can be done to curb the toll is to install a thermostat control in our bathrooms to bring the water temperature at the tap down to 42 degrees Celsius instead of 60 degrees which is more commonly the case. We see some pretty bad burns on people who have slipped into hot baths before they’ve adjusted the water temperature,” he says. “When you consider that your legs and bottom represent over 35 per cent of your body, the burns can be quite serious, particularly in elderly people and infants who have thinner and more fragile skin.”
In terms of the seriousness of a burn, doctors look at two things - first of all the size of the burn or how much of the surface area of the body is affected and secondly, the depth of the burn. “The deeper a burn the more likely you’ll need surgery,” Dr Maitz says. “For serious burns, what we call full-thickness burns, patients really suffer a lot of pain. They will need to be admitted to a specialised burns unit to get the treatment they need.”
Simple burn prevention rules
Dr Maitz says there are some simple, yet extremely important rules everyone needs to know as part of general first aid to deal with a burn. “Number one is to stop the burning process. That may mean turning off the electricity or rolling the person on the ground to put out the flames.
“The second thing is to cool the wound. Cooling has to be for at least 20 minutes and must occur within three hours of the burn. Running the wound under cold water, ideally 15 degrees, is one option. However, as cold water can be a hard thing to find in the bush, I advise people to purchase a hydro-gel dressing, which you can get from your chemist and keep handy in the first aid kit. These moist, specially packaged bandages work using evaporation to quell the burning process.
“Next, you have to wrap or cover the wound and get a healthcare professional to look at it.”
Burn treatment options
As to different treatments, Dr Wood cultures skin cells and sprays them on the affected area to repair the damage. At Concord Hospital, Dr Maitz has a laboratory where they can take a palm-sized piece of good skin from the patient and expand it biologically so it covers 50 per cent of the human body.
“Here at Concord Hospital, we have a team of over 50 people including surgeons, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, dieticians, speech pathologists and nurses, specially trained to deal with burns,” says Dr Maitz. “It’s a very labour intensive business, operating in specialised theatres kept at 35 degrees, with patients receiving up to 70 units of blood. It can take 10 operations to repair damaged organs and cut away the burnt skin, which if left, actually poisons and kills the patient.”
“The cost on the health system is high too. We spend about $400,000 just to get the patient to the stage where they can leave the burns unit, and that’s only a third of the total cost to rehabilitate someone.”
Program information
For more information about Burn Injury: Rural Perspectives, visit the program summary page.
In addition to the initial broadcast on Wednesday 22 February at 8pm eastern daylight savings time (EDST), there will be a repeat broadcast of the program on Friday 24 February at 1.30pm (EDST).
Program presenters include:
- Dr Fiona Wood AM, Head of Royal Perth Hospital’s Burns Unit and 2005 Australian of the Year.
- Dr Erik La Hei, Paediatric Burns Surgeon, The Childrens Hospital at Westmead NSW.
- Dr David Crompton, Psychiatrist, Area Director Mental Health Services, Hunter New England Health Service NSW.
- Ms Michelle McSweeney, Occupational Therapist, Burns Unit, Concord Hospital NSW.
- Dr David Rosenthal, Rural GP, Renmark SA & Deputy Chair, Rural Health Education Foundation.