Urgently needed: a Burns Unit for the Centre
ReSurge Africa priority: Acute Intensive Care Unit for Burns, Korle Bu, Accra
Proposed burns unit
Boiling water burns
Recovering at Korle Bu
Debilitating scarring
Painful dressing changes
Most burn victims are under 5
Extensive burn injuries
Open fire cooking leads to high incidence of burns
Burns risk, roadside cooking
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Plans have been made to improve the facilities for the care of burned patients. This is a funding priority for the Charity, and donations are urgently sought.
The incidence of burning injuries in Ghana is shockingly high. Open cooking fires in the home and in the markets, as well as poorly regulated industrial accidents contribute to the high numbers of severely burned patients we see needing acute care. More up to date facilities are urgently required to look after such critically injured patients.
A state of the art facility has been designed, a site designated within Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, adjacent to the RPSB Centre and funding is sought for the necessary $6 million required to establish the unit, which is so desperately needed.
The centre has to a certain extent become a victim of its own success. There are more people waiting for beds to become available than can be accommodated. The centre is always full. This is particularly so with burned patients, where the numbers are huge. At the moment there are eighteen beds for burn victims, six male, six female and six children.
It is estimated that the 1,000 patients treated in the Centre last year represent less than half of those people who have been burned and would qualify for hospital treatment, but never reach the hospital. Those that do reach the hospital may have to be treated outside of the Centre because the beds in the Centre are full.
The current overcrowding of the Burns unit encourages cross-infection, is very labour intensive and is far less than ideal. The answer is expansion and we plan to help establish a state-of-the art burns centre to serve the worst cases occurring West Africa.
The ground adjacent to the centre has been earmarked for this new, bigger, purpose built burns unit, which will be capable of carrying out the critical care necessary for these many severely injured people, men, women and particularly, children.
The building will cost in the order of $6 million.
