Beef up hospital burn units - experts

With threats of terror attacks perennially hanging over the heads of Filipinos, health experts underscored the need for the government to strengthen the burn units in government hospitals.

Dr. Hector Santos, president of the Philippine Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons, said the country is not ready for “mass burn injuries.”

“The Bali bombing can happen to us and we are not ready. I hope it would not happen here,” he said in a health forum organized by the Philippine College of Physicians.

Santos, head of the Plastic Surgery Section of the East Avenue Memorial Medical Center (EAMMC), joined the emergency contingents sent by the Department of Health to Bali, Indonesia where 202 individuals were killed in a terror attack in 2002.

He said Bali also did not have sufficient facilities for burn patients then. “They coped only because people (from other countries) helped,” he said.

Santos also recalled that when the Mayon volcano in Albay exploded in the past, several residents had to be brought to Manila because of burns from sulfur emissions.

There are four hospitals in the Philippines that have burn units and these are equipped with only 35 beds.

They are the University of the Philippines-run Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila and the EAMMC in Quezon City, Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center in Manila and Davao Medical Center in Davao City, which are all being run by the Department of Health.

“We really hope that we can expand our burn units. Those who suffer from burns are scarred for life, figuratively and literally. May God bless those who help them,” he said.

Dr. Glenn Genuino, president of the Philippine Society for Burn Injuries, said the ideal number of beds for burn patients in the Philippines is 100.

“I think Singapore has 50 beds and sometimes they only have two patients. Manpower-wise, we have the expertise to attend to burn patients. But we are lacking in logistics and facilities,” said Genuino, head of the PH’s Burn Section.

The two experts have observed an increase in burn cases in their respective hospitals in the past years, thus, bolstering the importance of expanding burn units.

In PGH alone, the number of cases rose from 76 in 1993 to 149 in 1997, 252 in 2004 and around 300 this year.

Genuino added that in 1993, some 51 percent of the cases involved chemical blasts or flames, followed by electrical burns with 28 percent and scalding, 20 percent.

In 1997, electrical burns jumped to 42 percent while chemical cases went down to 40 percent and scalding, 18 percent.

He said many of these accidents occurred in the workplace, affecting mostly the poor, thus no private hospitals in the Philippines have burn units.

The two experts admitted that it is costly to maintain burn units. On the average, a patient with major burn injuries needs some P10,000 to P20,000 for treatment while it may take some P20 million to put up an ideal six-bed burn unit.

“So without the support of non-governmental organizations, burn units will close down… It is very important for these patients to get proper treatment to avoid complications like burn contracture,” Genuino said.

Contracture is the tightening of the burnt skin that may affect the underlying muscles and tendons, limiting the mobility and nerves of a patient.