Vardhan opens Burns & Plastic Surgery Block at Delhi AIIMS, says India reports 70 lakh burn injuries annually

Nation

New Delhi, January 18: Around 70 lakh people in India suffer from burn injuries annually with mortality rate as high as 1.4 lakh per year and an additional 2.4 lakh patients end up with severe deformities, said Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, after inaugurating newly constructed Burns and Plastic Surgery Block of AIIMS, New Delhi here on Monday.

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. Integration of the block with the trauma center will provide easy assistance to trauma team in no time. These definite steps will help in decreasing deaths in burn patients and also reducing the deformities in survivors,” said the Union Health Minister.

“Burn injury is one of the biggest causes of workforce loss and this is an issue of concern for a rapidly developing economy like India. India has as many as 70 lakh burn injuries annually with mortality rate as high as 1.4 lakh per year and an additional 2.4 lakh patients end up with severe deformities. Due to its large population, most of the burn care facilities are overburdened and the state-of-the-art burn care is negligible,” said Vardhan.

Maintaining that there is a dire need for a healthcare facility which can provide high quality care for large fraction of population, the Union Health Minister said 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.

He also explained the objective behind setting up Burns and Plastic Surgery Block.

“Burns & Plastic Surgery Block has three goals. The first is to reduce the number of deaths due to burns; a present death toll of 1.4 lakh a year due to burn is not a happy situation,” said Vardhan.

He said that 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.”

AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria, Dr. Sunil Kumar, DG, DGHS, Dr Maneesh Singhal, Professor and Head, Department of Plastic, Reconstructive & Burns Surgery and other senior officials of the Health Ministry were also present at the event.

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