The Taiwan Society for Burn Injuries and Wound Healing has issued a call for more plastic surgeons in private practices to lend their services to treating hundreds of people injured by a blast involving powdered cornstarch at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on Saturday.
Society president Dai Niann-tzy (戴念梓) said on Wednesday that hospitals trying to treat the large number of burns patients faced a shortage of specialists in plastic and reconstructive surgery, making it impossible to keep up with demand for treatment.
The injuries have exposed problems at many hospitals, he said.
Some plastic surgeons at private institutions have volunteered their services at hospitals treating people affected by the disaster, Dai said, adding that more plastic surgeons and reconstructive surgery specialists are needed.
Dai, a plastic surgeon himself, said the Ministry of Health and Welfare should allow hospitals to recruit more resident physicians who specialize in reconstructive surgery.
He said burn units are not equipped to cope with the nearly 500 people injured at the park.
There are only 128 beds for burn patients nationwide and 167 places in intensive care for those requiring surgery, Dai said.
With hospitals in northern Taiwan strained to the limit dealing with the incident’s aftermath, some hospitals in central and southern Taiwan, as well as the Hualien Tzu Chi Medical Center can take another 15 to 20 burn patients between them, he said.
Tri-Service General Hospital, Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and the two MacKay Memorial hospitals have each treated 40 to 60 patients who sustained moderate to severe burns, Dai said, adding that the operating rooms at those hospitals have been in service around the clock.
In response to the shortage of facilities, he said that hospitals should convert some of their surgical wards to burns wards and use their surgical intensive care units to accommodate patients with severe burns.
Dai said that infection becomes a risk four days after a burn is sustained.
He said the society is calling for a meeting with medical personnel from Tri-Service General Hospital, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Cheng Kung University Hospital, as well as with the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation, to discuss means to prevent infection.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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