Burn victim’s uncertain future
● Rien ne Dit Kasongo may have survived a fire that swept over his body as a newborn baby, but the scars that stretch across the sixyear-old’s face, arm and hand represent a lifetime of pain and stigma in his future.
The boy — born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo — was maimed when he was just a week old, when a paraffin lamp meant to keep him warm started a fire in his shack.
His scars are now an inescapable millstone, exposing a critical shortage of trained medical personnel in the public sector who — overwhelmed and under-resourced — treat as many as 1.6-million burn patients every year.
“Surgery is needed to save his life, not because his heart has stopped beating or his lungs can’t filter the air, but because he is considered too hideous for this vain world,” said Bronwen Jones, founder of the charity Children of Fire.
Because of the severity of his wounds, Kasongo was brought to the organisation’s headquarters in Johannesburg. He has undergone six operations in an effort to save his eye, reconstruct his nose and restore his hairline. The burn wounds fused the fingers of his right hand into a ball, rendering it useless. But now he has run out of options.
“We have gone back and forth between the private and public sector and we’re grateful for all the help we have received so far, but what they have said is that there is too much scar tissue to try and expand his hairline. He needs First World care and that is out of reach,” Jones said.
“There may a surgeon somewhere who can help with his hand or with his facial scars, and we hold out hope for that.”
A 2018 study by the Pietermaritzburg Burn Service to quantify the capacity for burn care in SA revealed the dire shortage of specialist care facilities for burn victims.
The study found the public health-care sector has only 17 burn units nationally, and 511 beds to accommodate the wounded.
“There are some deficits in the infrastructure and staffing available to treat burn injuries, which include access to isolation, after-hours cover, dedicated temperature controlled theatres. This is difficult to alter without government buy-in,” it reads.
Lead author Dr Nikki Allorto says 60% of all burn victims are children.
“Our statistics are old, but they say 3.2% of the population suffer burns, and of that figure, 10% require specialised care.”
Because burn care is mostly not specialised in state hospitals, patients are left with jarring scars and complications which could otherwise have been avoided, she said. “People with severe facial burns can’t get work or integrate into society because those scars mean they are ostracised.” Had they got the correct treatment early on, those implications would not be so severe.
Joyce Maelamo was a model before she was maimed in a car fire in 2003.
“It was extremely hard to even be human. I had to change my environment and I moved cities, and it was not easy for me to accept my scars and that I basically look like a different person,” she said. “There is immense stigma. For children it is tragic because these scars will become their entire lives.”
The department of health did not respond to questions.