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Citation
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Chu H, Reid G, Sack A, Heryet R, Mackie I, Sen SK. Burns 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub. |
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Abstract
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Dear Editor,
We read with interest the article “Management strategies for the burn ward during COVID-19 pandemic” by Li et al. [1] and share our experiences within the Southwest adult burns unit based at Southmead Hospital, Bristol, United Kingdom.
In 2019 the service reviewed 1495 patients: with 294 being admitted for inpatient care, the average length of stay being 5.39 days. The most frequent mechanism of injury was burn by scalding (n = 708) with these most commonly occurring in the kitchen.
On the 23rd March, the government announced new measures to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 (CoVid-19) pandemic. These included a nationwide closure of all schools, advising that the public should avoid non-essential travel and to work from home if able.
Many aspects of healthcare provision within the NHS have been reconfigured [2] to accommodate the predicted numbers of patients requiring inpatient care due to infection with SARS-CoV-2. However the referral criteria to our burns services remain unchanged and this snapshot review, following the imposed government restrictions, provides an insightful reflection into the daily activities of the general public and changes that have presented to our unit.
To ensure that changes reflected the lockdown, data was collected from the 30th March to the 5th April in 2020. This week was mapped onto the previous 5 years. Information was retrieved from the local database from the International Burn Injury Database (IBID). This included the demographics of patients presenting to our service, the total body surface area of burn (TBSA) and also the place and mechanism of injury ...
Language: en |