Doctor's operations help in hunt for vital Bali clues

By ANGELA GREGORY health reporter

As Australian burns surgeon Peter Maitz operated on Bali victims he carefully put aside tiny pieces of debris buried deep in their wounds.

Normally they might have been discarded with the surgical rubbish.

But the shrapnel was sealed and handed to Australian federal police searching for any evidence that could help lead investigators to the culprits behind the bomb blast.

Mr Maitz said he was sure he had found pieces of the bomb.

"They were bits of metal ... like nothing I had seen before."

He was in Auckland this week for the Australia New Zealand Burns Association's annual scientific conference.

He told those gathered that he was glad to be welcomed to the city which was "different from the war zone in Sydney I had to leave to come here".

He said the only positive outcome of the disaster was the Australian Government's acknowledgment of burns treatment funding shortfalls.

"I think funding will be more available ... in the next year."

Mr Maitz later said he was caring for 13 of the young Bali patients at the New South Wales burns unit, of which he is the medical director.

Their scars were horrifying, many were still deaf from the blast, and all would remain traumatised for months to come, he said.

But the victims were mainly overwhelmed with relief at having escaped their tropical nightmare.

"They are just glad to be out of there and back with family and friends."

Mr Maitz said they were nearly all seriously burned and had suffered multiple trauma, with broken limbs, fractures, internal organ damage and blast injuries to their eyes.

One patient with an open brain injury and who had lost two legs, remained in a critical condition, but the rest were likely to live.

Mr Maitz said it was hard to understand the trauma the bomb victims had gone through. He could only compare his experience with them to his 10 days of field surgery work in Bosnia in 1999.

The patients now faced lengthy periods of huge stress and depression, he said.

Their friends and relatives would need a lot of emotional support.

Mr Maitz said some of the burns treatment available to the patients had not been around even five years ago.

Advanced technology included skin substitutes, cultured skin cells, and anti-microbial dressings.

The Government had told the burns surgeons to get whatever they needed. "They wanted to make sure that whatever is available we will be able to access ... I even brought additional instruments because I could not sterilise the existing gear fast enough."

Mr Maitz said it had not been widely reported that Australia had got many badly burned Europeans out of Bali, and they had all received free medical care.

"They are very appreciative they have ended up in a westernised country with state of the art medical treatments."

He was pleased how well the Australian burns teams coped with the disaster.

The already-busy burns unit had been put on disaster call and most patients were shifted to other wards, while private plastic surgeons offered their time and expertise.

Mr Maitz and two other leading burns surgeons worked from early morning until midnight for the first five days after the victims landed in two Hercules aircraft. He had to insist the teams took the weekend off.

"The pressure was mounting. I could see it on staff faces."

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