Skin ordered from US for victims
Middlemore Hospital is ordering
1.2 million square centimetres of skin from the United States for victims burnt by the Whakaari/ White Island eruption, to deal with the ‘‘unprecedented’’ medical emergency.
Dr John Kenealy, clinical director of surgery, said 27 patients involved in the eruption were eligible for admission into the burns unit, which has centres nationwide. To be eligible, patients must have burns to more than 30 per cent of their body.
As a result of the eruption, some of the patients had burns to
90 or 95 per cent of their bodies. Counties Manukau District Health Board’s chief medical officer, Dr Peter Watson, said staff at the hospital had been working ‘‘around the clock, non-stop’’ to treat patients injured in the volcanic explosion.
The eruption of Whakaari/ White Island has been declared a mass fatality incident.
Six people are now confirmed dead, with the eight remaining on the island presumed dead.
A further 25, of the 30 patients being treated in hospital, remain in a critical condition, with burns to more than 30 per cent of their bodies. Many are on ventilators and are in need of skin grafts.
Since the island, off the coast of Whakata¯ ne in the Bay of Plenty, erupted at 2.11pm on Monday, hospitals around the country have been busy aiding those injured and severely burnt, and recovery operations were beginning to get under way.
Watson said all of the burn units around the country were ‘‘full to capacity’’. ‘‘It is important not to underestimate the gravity of the injuries suffered, the huge response being mounted by our hospitals and the time it will take for some patients to fully recover,’’ Watson said.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, director-general of the Ministry of Health, said the national mul
tiple complex burn action plan had been activated for the first time ever. The burns unit in Middlemore Hospital had taken over the overall care of the patients across the country, and would be making decisions about repatriating injured foreigners back to their home countries.
Yesterday, the chief coroner declared the eruption a mass fatality incident.
The coroner’s office, together with police DVI (disaster victim identification) experts, forensic pathologists, forensic scientists and forensic dentists, were now working to identify deceased victims so they could be released to their families. ‘‘Depending on how long it takes to retrieve the deceased from the island, it could be some weeks before all the deceased are identified,’’ Chief
Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall said. ‘‘The highest standards are set to ensure the victims are correctly identified and returned to their loved ones. We will gather information from post-mortem examinations, and also any antemortem information [information from when they were alive] to ensure people are identified correctly.’’
Evidence had already been gathered from the rooms of those who were aboard the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship. Of the 47 people on the island at the time of the eruption, 38 were passengers on the cruise liner. The names of those who had died would be released when formal identification had been completed, she said.
Meanwhile family members search for loved ones who may have been affected by the eruption.
Among those still missing were two Australian families and Kiwi tour guide Tipene Maangi.
Late yesterday, the Dallow family in Australia confirmed that Adelaide lawyer Gavin Dallow and 15-year-old Zoe Hosking were the third and fourth confirmed Australian victims of the disaster.
As of yesterday, plans were still being made to recover the bodies of those still on the island.
The National Emergency Management Agency civil defence director, Sarah Stuart Black, said there was hope bodies could be recovered yesterday but the risk was still too high due to the conditions on the island. ‘‘This is an utterly tragic situation ... every day that passes with those bodies unrecovered is a day of anguish for loved ones,’’ she said. ‘‘I completely understand how important it is for them ... that we undertake that recovery process as quickly as we can.’’