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Dr Harsh Vardhan with doctors at Delhi-AIIMS

One Indian dies of burns every 4 minutes: AIIMS

 Rohit Shishodia
Lack of burn care in rural, far flung and semi urban areas is taking a toll on the health and lives of people across India. According to Dr Manish Singhal, Head of Department, Burns and Plastic Surgery, Delhi-AIIMS, one person in India succumbs to burn injuries every four minutes.  

“Burn injuries, consequent disfigurement and loss of productivity are major problems in India. We have an annual incidence of around 70 lakh burns every year. 10 lakh out of 70 lakh are severe burn injuries and 1.4 lakh lives are lost every year due to burns. One person dies of burns every four minutes,” said Dr Singhal while speaking at the inauguration of the Burns and Plastic Surgery Block at Delhi-AIIMS.

Speaking at the occasion, India's Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, said, “Most of the burn care facilities are overburdened and the state-of-the-art burn care is negligible. There is a dire need for a healthcare facility which can provide high quality care for a large fraction of the population. The new Burns and Plastic Surgery Block has been conceived with the vision of providing state-of-the-art care in the field of burns management and research.”

Explaining the objective of setting up the block he said, “Burns and Plastic Surgery Block has three goals. The first is to reduce the number of deaths due to burns. The most important determinant of death in burn patients is infection. This facility has individual cubicles in ICU for 30 patients and 10 private isolation beds to prevent any cross infection. Second, by adhering to standard protocols the Institution will be able to reduce the number of people who will end up with deformities. Third is to bring down the costs. Management of burns involve direct and indirect costs. Direct cost comprises what is spent on medical care, and indirect loss is the economic impact due to loss of job, loss of wages, loss of productivity and loss of training etc,” explained Dr Vardhan.

He further added, “This Block is equipped to deal with approximately 15,000 burn emergencies and 5000 burn admissions a year. It can deal with mass casualties efficiently by converting the patient receiving area itself into an emergency ward as per need.”

He further said that integration of the block with the trauma center will provide easy assistance to the trauma team in no time. These definite steps will help in decreasing deaths in burn patients and also reducing the deformities in survivors.


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