 G'day all today. I'm here at the Alfred Hospital in particular the Burns unit I'm here with patient Allen and the head of the Burns unit Dr. Heather Cleland The Burns unit at the Alfred is one of the biggest in the country and the thing that surprised me when I had the opportunity to tour around That they have 300 so that's 300 people a year that have acute burns and that's just such a significant event I thought it was important to talk to Dr. Heather here about what are the actual causes of those burns so we can Communicate that not only to your brigade members, but broadly to your community Our objective here is to reduce the number. We don't want over 300 people attending this unit So Heather what are some of the causes that actually drive people or mean people have to be admitted to this hospital? Well the the overwhelming Common cause of burn injuries is due to the accelerants so people throwing petrol on barbecues trying to get Grass fires started burnt burn-offs and that kind of thing and Especially on hot days when there's a lot of petrol vapor around Obviously, there's a huge potential for explosions to occur and People then get caught up in those flames their clothes catch fire and they end up with you know Really severe life-threatening injuries So I understand it's about a third of the entries of cause the fires of burns of acute burns up from accelerants And it's petrol. That's right mostly petrol. Yes. What are some of the other causes there of people being having to come into the Alfred? Basically, they're often especially around this time of year related to leisure activities and in particular the great Australian barbecue tradition often associated with enjoyment of beverages and Often in those situations where people are drinking alcohol and perhaps not as Concentrating as well as they ought to be on on being careful when they're open flames around then we start to see some really significant injuries So for my I'm going to read through some of the statistics. So you just heard it's it's bonfires. It's barbecues those those Chimoneers, I think they're called those those type of fires bond The campfires that haven't been extinguished properly Pressure pack cans that are thrown into fires. There's some basic things that people do just That that will cause acute burns. I think oil Heather on stoves in the home is another significant the other big group of burn injuries occurs in domestic house fires and often that's related to Cooking and Again young men seem to cook with far too much oil as a rule Which often catches fire and then that's when again you get the problem with hot oil spilling on people Or their clothes catching fire when the oil catches fire campfires That aren't extinguished properly or where they've just been extinguished by putting dirt or sand on them We see a significant number of children at the children's hospital not not here Who have very nasty feet burns from running through fires that they're not even aware are there which are covered up by dirt So if you're extinguishing campfires, you need to put water on them and make sure that they're completely out So people there it is over 300 entries to the Alfred hospital for acute burns acute burns Not minor burns. These are acute burns. Most of those are male a good percentage. Those are accelerants It is a really clear message that we need to communicate to help prevent people from coming from being admitted into This hospital and other other hospitals around the country long Would someone expect to stay in hospital as a result of a acute burn here at the Alfred? Well, the average length of stay for an inpatient is around about two weeks Which is a very long stay in this day and age and obviously it depends on how severe an injury you've got The acute inpatient hospital stays just the first bit of it often. There's long period of rehabilitation people of work You know the whole thing completely Disruptive and and treatment can go on for months as an outpatient with scar management and that kind of thing So, you know, even what a classified by says minor injuries are extremely Disruptive families and going into the Alfred into intensive care. There's a special section in Intensive care for burns unit Hopefully up into the ward and still another two weeks duration on average. So sometimes it'll be longer than that. Oh Yes, some some of the patients who are more severely injured who come from ice They can be an intensive care for weeks on end and then sometimes months in hospital before months more in rehabilitation So so for Patients of the more extreme severe end of the spectrum. This is something that goes on for years So this the impacts of the burns and not just the burn itself You've just heard dr. Heather saying these go on for years and the impacts are quite significant. So, you know Burns are something we really need to prevent to make sure that people don't have to go through the impact that we're seeing So I've just had the privilege of visiting the burns unit here at the Alfred Hospital And there's two things that struck me one the number of acute burns that happened on a regular basis over 300 Nearly one a day acute burns that come here to the Alfred Hospital and to the passion the dedication the support here that the Staff give the patient. How can we help? Let's try and stop people coming here in the first place So this weekend if you're at a barbecue if you're at a fire Let's tell people don't go near fuel if there are things we can do and delivering a message We actually help the staff to stop people coming here to the Alfred That's the main thing that we can do here. Hey, it's been a real privilege to tour over the hospital great people Let's see what we can do to stop this happening in the future