Smile Foundation spreads awareness on National Burns Awareness month
A visit to East London resulted in Smile Foundation's latest campaign to raise funds for the survivors of serious burns.
Smile Foundation revealed that annually, nearly 3.2% of South Africa’s population is affected by serious burn injuries and 60% of those individuals were children.
As May is considered to be the National Burns Awareness month, the Hyde Park based non-profit organisation has been spreading the awareness of the national public health problem in a bid to prevent more cases.
With the presence of winter and load shedding, the organisation said the number of burn victims would increase due to incidents involving paraffin stoves and candles in households.
During a visit to East London for their Smile Week, representatives of the foundation spent most of their time with seven survivors who had undergone surgery for their burn injuries. One of the survivors was 11-month-old Imbusise who endured severe burns from a incident involving a flask of boiling water at seven months of age.
“Imbusise suffered deep burns to the dermis which required skin grafts. She will need more grafting at a later stage. The patient had developed subglottic stenosis which is the narrowing of the airway.
She has a long road ahead of her and once the burns and the contractures are dealt with, her ENT specialist will later perform surgery to expand and repair her airway,” said Dr Sarita Pandey, who shared Imbusise’s current health status.
After six weeks of multiple surgeries, Smile Foundation provided Imbusise and her great aunt with counselling.
The foundation’s marketing manager Toni Jabour concluded, “To further their efforts to help burn survivors in dire need of the right medical care, Smile Foundation, through the backing of generous sponsors is supporting the renovation of the burns unit at Kimberley’s Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital and assisting with the fundraising for the building of the first-ever burns unit at Greys Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal.”
Related articles:
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/278850/sa-ngo-calls-for-publics-assistance-amid-major-backlog-of-child-surgeries/
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/310712/smile-foundation-celebrates-21-years/
