Plastic Surgery . . .

The term 'plastic surgery' conjures up images of perfect smiles, chin lifts, ironed out crease lines of the forehead, smoothened wrinkles for most of us . . .

We've been privileged to have Dr. Ron Hiles from England coming almost every year to teach and facilitate our surgeons to do 'plastic surgery'. Most of the time, it involves straightening out contracted limbs following accidents . . . especially burns . . . most of them neglected when they should have been well taken care of. 

Accompanying Dr. Hiles is Ms. RuthAnn Fanstone, an accomplished Physiotherapist, also from England who specialises in burns management. 

Since Dr. Nandamani is away on a long leave, we've requested him also to be around when these special surgeries take place. This year, it's going to be another milestone for us as a new physiotherapy graduate, Ms. Sheron Mathew from the Christian Medical College, Vellore would join us.

And for the first time, we tried some advertising on the radio. For most of us, it's a forgotten means of communication media. But, it still holds fort in remote areas such as ours. 

We've already got about 15 patients lined up only for the 'plastic surgery'. Cases as severe as the burn contracture in this one year old child . . .

. . . to the love-stuck young man who realised the folly of permanently tattooing his first love's name on his forearm. 

There would be quite a lot of patients who would not be able to pay for their surgeries. If you would like to make a contribution to help us subsidize the cost, please get in touch. 

Visitors at NJH

It was a privilege to have Ms RuthAnn from Interburns and her friend, Mrs Juliet over the last week. Ms RuthAnn visited us as part of the work she is doing with Interburns to popularize and promote burn care in NJH. I shall put in a post about Interburns later as time permits.

Burn care in NJH is not anything new and we had been talking about a separate unit for managing burns in this part of the country. As far as we know, we are the only unit in West Jharkhand who manages burns. As evident from my previous posts (Pediatric Burns, Neglected burns, Prodigal son, Mismanaged burns), we have been quite busy managing burns.

Ms RuthAnn is a trained physiotherapist who has developed a specific interest in burn care during her time at Duncan Hospital, Raxaul – another unit of Emmanuel Hospital Association.

As far as I understood, Interburns has been standing for a more active management of burns with tangential excision of burn wounds and skin grafting along with active physiotherapy. To the layman – it sounds complex. Well, let me explain.

RuthAnn along with the EHA team in Burn Care Retreat at Bangladesh

 

The older management of burns involved daily dressings which used to be messy and took quite a long time. In addition, there was also contracture formation which made life quite difficult for the patient. In tangential excision, the burn wound is excised as soon as possible and a skin graft is done immediately. It speedens up healing, decreases the amount of time the patient spends in hospital and prevents contractions.

One of the major accomplishments RuthAnn has made is to popularize the use of commonly available materials to make splints designed to prevent contractures after skin grafting. To help us with the making of splints, she graciously donated a heat gun to us.

RuthAnn teaching Dinesh to make splints

MI recieving a locally made splint to prevent contracture of his left axilla

MI being helped with physiotherapy

RuthAnn’s friend, Juliet accompanied her and helped us in umpteen numbers of ways including helping her with the classes for nurses, accompanying the Community Health team and encouraging us and providing a good time for many of us. We are quite thankful to Juliet for the time she spent in prayer for us.

We look forward to RuthAnn and Juliet coming back to see a flourishing burns unit and a improved hospital set up.