lack of primary care and focused attention has been plaguing the treatment of burn accident victims all over the country with an estimated one to two million of the six to seven million new patients entering the register every year succumbing to the injuries.
“lack of primary care is the biggest reason for the high morbidity and mortality,” Dr Jayant Kumar Dash, Head of the Department of Burn, Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery at the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital, told reporters here on Thursday.
Treatment of burn injury is yet to get the attention it requires as there are less than 50 burn care centres in the country with Odisha having only two at the SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack and the Ispat General Hospital at Rourkela, he said.
The country does not also have a prevention programme at the national level to avert burn accidents and has a few burn surgeons and less than 1,500 plastic surgeons.
Dr Dash said with proper care a patient with up to 70 per cent burn injury can survive and with skin grafting provided there is the hope for restoration of the damaged areas.
He said that a person, after suffering burns, should treat the affected area with normal tap water. No ice should be applied as it can lead to hypothermia.
Most number of burn casualties are reported from rural areas with the victims belonging to the lower socioeconomic strata. While their access to proper burn care is limited, the cost of treatment is expensive because of the long stay of the patient in the hospital and the high cost of antibiotics and dressing material, Dr Dash said.
The need of the hour, he said, is to provide training to doctors at the peripheral level to adequately treat burn injuries.
He informed that the IMS and Sum Hospital is organising a national seminar on burns on Saturday which would be attended by international, national and regional experts.