The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) yesterday announced its allocation of cadaver skin to hospitals to address the needs of burn victims of the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park fire.
The ministry made the announcement after meeting with burn specialists yesterday morning to discuss the allocation of imported cadaver skin in response to the June 27 fire in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) that injured 495 people and killed two.
The Taiwan Society of Plastic Surgery (TSPS) was put in charge of coordinating efforts between the ministry and medical institutions treating the burn victims in relation to the allocation of the skin.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has so far imported a total of 24.7m2 (7.47 ping) of cadaver skin, including 3.7m2 from the US that arrived on Friday night, 9m2 from the Netherlands that arrived on Saturday and 12m2 from the US that was due to arrive last night.
TSPS director-general Ma Hsu (馬旭) said based on the presumption that each percentage of burn wounds need 120cm2 of cadaver skin, the total amount required for a single surgical debridement could be between 3,600cm2 and 4,800cm2 for one severely burned patient, meaning the imported skin would only be enough for about 51 patients.
“Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital is responsible for treating the most victims and the largest burn surface area, followed by National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Mackay Memorial Hospital and Tri-Service General Hospital,” Ma said.
Ma said the allocation of the cadaver skin does not take into account the size of hospitals, adding that the nation would continue to import more supplies and that the US was able to provide an estimated 17m2 of cadaver skin each week.
Taiwan Medical Association secretary-general Tsai Ming-chung (蔡明忠) said that a total of about 150m2 of cadaver skin is needed to treat all the burn victims from the fire.
He said the FDA has placed an order with the US for about 100m2 of skin.
However, NTUH Department of Plastic Surgery director Tai Hao-chih (戴浩志) said burn victims who sustained burns to more than 60 percent of their bodies should be given priority in the allocation of imported cadaver skin, as they are more prone to infection and sepsis.
“The nearly 500 patients should be divided into three categories based on the severity of their burns: those with burns covering 20 percent to 40 percent of their body, 40 percent to 60 percent and more than 60 percent,” Tai said.
Tai said victims in the last category should have priority in terms of allocation of cadaver skin.
According to the ministry’s victim monitoring statistics, the 495 victims suffered an average burn size of 43.7 percent of their bodies, with 234 sustaining burns to more than 40 percent of their bodies, including 24 who suffered burns to more than 80 percent of their bodies.
As of 12pm yesterday, 434 of the victims remained hospitalized, with 237 in critical condition.
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