20% of children with severe burns die

One in every five children with severe burns injury that get admitted to hospitals in the country do not survive, a non-profit think tank focused on healthcare challenges in sub-saharan Africa has disclosed.

The Public Health Alliance International Ghana (PHAIG) said the factors contributing to the high mortality rate of burns injury cases among children included the affected children not being sent to hospital early enough and the fact that some mothers attempted to treat the wounds at home.

“The mothers try to treat them at home because they don’t have the financial wherewithal to take them to a hospital. Again, because they feel they can handle it on their own when, really, they cannot, until infection sets in before they bring the patient to a health facility,” the Vice-President of the organisation, Dr Samuel Nuamah, explained.

He detailed in an interview that once infection set in, it became almost too late.

“The patient can develop what is called sepsis. The infection spreads within the blood and the body systems and once that happens, the system begins to shut down,” he stated.

Dr Nuamah added that aside from dehydration, infection was actually the biggest cause of mortality among burns injury patients, especially those involving children.

Furthermore, he said, in some health facilities, especially those in rural areas, they did not have the right specialists with the capacities to manage such cases thereby, leading to sub optimal management of the cases and by the time the case was referred to another facility, a lot of damage might have been caused.

“They go to the ICU, they are managed but 20 per cent of them pass on. This is quite alarming because burns injury in children is something that is preventable in most cases so why then should children get themselves into that situation for us to lose 20 per cent of them,” he asked.

Paediatric Burns Campaign  

Dr Nuamah, who is a public health consultant, explained that it was due to such reasons that the organisation decided to come up with an initiative known as “Paediatric Burns Campaign” to prevent and counter the devastating effects of burns injury among children in Ghana and sub-saharan Africa.

“If these children are brought in early enough and seen by first line responders who have the capacity, then their chances of survival are higher. We realise that these were part of the factors contributing to the high mortality among children with burns injury cases,” he explained.

The one-year campaign set to start next month is targeted at children under five years in rural and semi urban areas and it would be run by a multidisciplinary team made up of public health specialists and consultants in PHAIG.

The campaign would be in phases starting with an awareness and education phase, which would, among others, highlight the risk factors for burns injury among children in Ghana; the phase two involved engagement with relevant stakeholders, including healthcare professionals who were involved in the management of burns cases and ending with a phase where they would be providing various forms of support to burns victims.

The vice president of PHAIG said the organisation did not know about that until it obtained data from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, the Effia Nkwanta Hospital and other health facilities that it engaged.

Reasons for burns injuries

Explaining the reasons behind children sustaining severe burns injury as compared to adults, Dr Nuamah said because of their distorted perception to danger when they found themselves in that position, they did not withdraw as adults would, but remained in that situation until their parents or an adult pulled them out of the danger.
For burns, the longer the damaging substance stayed on the victim, the greater the degree of injury, the public health consultant stated.

Dr Nuamah advised caregivers to seek knowledge of fire safety because they had realised that a lot of them did not have such knowledge.

He also appealed to fathers to support their wives when it came to taking care of their children who had suffered burns.