$4.3m for new burns unit

By ANGELA GREGORY health reporter

Construction starts next month on a long-awaited $4.3 million national burns unit at Middlemore Hospital.

The country's top burn surgeons have welcomed the announcement yesterday from Health Minister Annette King.

The frustrated specialists have been calling for a dedicated unit to cater for the country's most serious burns patients along modern specifications.

New Zealand plastic surgeons once pioneered burns treatment worldwide, but the facilities at Middlemore have lagged behind those available overseas for years.

Mrs King said the project would see a separate burns unit with four isolation rooms for high-dependency patients, six beds including a double room, and two semi-self-contained rooms for rehabilitation.

"Middlemore Hospital has been treating serious burns patients throughout New Zealand over the past 50 years, and I am very pleased that the specialist burns team ... will be able to treat patients in upgraded facilities that are dedicated for burns treatment."

Mrs King said the treatment of burns tended to be lengthy, requiring the input of many people, including burns and plastic surgeons, physiotherapists, specialist burns nurses and trauma counsellors.

"Burns patients need intensive treatment and have unique requirements for wound management, infection control and rehabilitation and these developments will provide patients with a higher standard of care."

Mrs King said negotiations for a formal funding agreement between Counties Manukau District Health Board, ACC and the Health Ministry were expected to be reached by the end of next month and construction could then begin.

Counties Manukau District Health Board chief executive Stephen McKernan said it was important to create an environment that was conducive to burns treatment, with the best possible infection control.

"The staff are over the moon about it."

The unit would be built in the Galbraith building next to the intensive care unit and would open in about six months.

Mr McKernan said burns patients needed extremely intensive treatment.

A major burn was one of the greatest stresses that could be placed on the human body and physical as well as emotional issues placed great demands on the patient and the family involved.

It was important to acknowledge the staff who had worked tirelessly to establish a national reputation for the unit, he said.

A co-director of the burns service, Dr Stephen Mills, said the new unit's self-contained rooms would improve infection control, which was a major problem.

A recent patient, Juan Ruiz, 20, had had problems with infected wounds during his stay in the ward.

He had 45 per cent burns over his body after escaping from a burning house in Henderson in July.

Mr Ruiz has already had five operations, up to five hours long, and would still be being treated by the team of professionals, including occupational and physiotherapists, by the time the new unit opened.

Dr Mills said: "We have people coming back for years. This is another reason why a separate unit is important ... we work together."

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