To provide state-of-the-art primary and tertiary care for burn patients, a 100 bed “burns and plastic surgery block” will come up at the prestigious AIIMS in the national capital. The Union health ministry has approved the proposal and the AIIMS authorities are in the process of seeking clearances from the concerned agencies to start the construction.
“The ten-storied building will come up at existing Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, AIIMS premises. It will also have a laboratory for regenerative medicine so that we are able to develop artificial skin for the burn victims,” said AIIMS director Dr M.C. Mishra. The proposal is the brainchild of Dr Maneesh Singhal of the department of Burns and Plastic Surgery, AIIMS. He said an estimated six to seven million people suffered burn injuries in India annually and nearly 10 per cent of these are life threatening and require hospitalisation. “Even in the capital city, there are less than 200 beds for burn management to cater to the needs of burn victims. The matter that really burdens the crumbling infrastructure in the capital is the fact that most of the burn patients are from outside Delhi, coming from other states as far as Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,” said Dr Singhal.
According to Dr Singhal, there are nearly 70,000 burn injuries per year in Delhi and thus 200 beds in the burn unit of Safdarjung and other hospitals are not sufficient for the ever increasing load of burn injuries in the capital. “The Safdarjung Hospital’s Burn unit gets between 5,500 to 6,000 burn victims annually, but has the capacity to admit only 1,700-1,800 patients annually. This facility is expected to cater to approximately 10,000 emergency patients and admit approximately 1,000 patients with burn injuries,” added Dr Singhal.
Currently, only four hospitals, Safdarjung, RML, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) and Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) have the facilities to treat burn patients. AIIMS does not have the facility to treat emergency burn patients.
Data of National Crime Record Bureau suggest that 9 per cent of injury related deaths are due to burns.
