Hyderabad: After Union ministry of health and family welfare found that more than 70 lakh people die of burn related injuries every year, which is more than the deaths caused by communicable disease like malaria and tuberculosis, the central government decided to provide financial assistance to the state governments under the National Health Mission scheme to
establish special burn wards in all the district headquarter hospitals across the country.
As part of this programme, the state government of Telangana has also decided to send the proposals for the same to the central government and is expected to seek financial assistance.
In fact, the central govern- ment had already released Rs 6.57 crore to Andhra Pradesh government for establishing a burns and cosmetic surgery.
At present, except Osmania and Gandhi General hospitals in Hyderabad, there are no full-fledged specialised wards in Telangana. However, these wards too suffer shortage of trained and well experienced healthcare staff.
These wards have only one or two plastic surgeons, while in many cases the general surgeons are carrying out treatment for the patients suffering with burns. As part of the establishment of the burns ward in the government hospitals, the health department is expected to construct a special operation theatre, each ward will have 4 beds in ICU, and 8 beds in General ward and will also have a special skin storage unit.
According to statistics from the state healthcare department, it is estimated that every year in Telangana more than 70,000 people are suffering from burn related injuries.
Every day the major government hospitals like Osmania and Gandhi receive about 15-20 burn related cases from across various districts. Of them 5-8 people die while remaining people either get fully cured or become handicapped due to burn related injuries.