Dedicated Operating Theatre For Paediatric Burns

Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (CHBAH)

 

Paediatric burn wounds are sadly a common injury in the Greater Gauteng area. At CHBAH we currently have a dedicated Paediatric Burns Unit. This unit has 8 intensive care beds, and 24 general ward beds.

By introducing specialist Paediatric Intensive Care staff, amongst a number of other strategies, we have managed to significantly reduce the previously unacceptably high mortality rate in this unit. One significant hurdle remains:

Current situation

We share a single operating theatre with the adult burns unit.

This means that:

  • Our children’s access to this burns theatre is restricted to 2 days a week. Due to the nature of their injuries, they need access to a theatre 7 days a week.
  • There is often cross contamination of life threatening infections, most of which originate from adult patients.

Our Project

We would like to build a dedicated Paediatric Burns Theatre and Recovery Room.

This theatre will be accessible to the children 7 days a week and will be used solely for the treatment of patients in the Paediatric Burns Unit.

This will:

  • Enable us to optimise the care of the burn wounds themselves.
  • Have a massive impact on decreasing the rate of hospital acquired infections, reducing the mortality rate in the Paediatric Burns Unit even further.

What we need

  • Capital finance – the cost of this project is currently expected to be over R15 million.
  • We would also appreciate help with goods and services from the construction and medical supplies industries.

Next Biosciences Donation

 

 

Next Biosciences, a South African Biotech company, has very kindly donated 10 of their dehydrated Amniotic Membrane products, AmnioMatrix, to ‘Surgeons for Little Lives’ to assist with burn wound victims.

AmnioMatrix acts as a biological dressing that facilitates wound healing and could potentially be life saving for some of our precious little lives. The Surgeons for Little Lives team is very grateful for this donation, it will play a massive role in our burns patients!!!

Visit their website for more info: https://nextbio.co.za/