New Delhi: Around 500 cases of burn injuries, mostly due to firecrackers, were reported from the capital this Diwali.
The five government hospitals — Safdarjung, Ram Manohar Lohia (RML), Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB), Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU), and Lok Nayak (LN) hospitals, designated by Delhi government to deal with cases related to burn injuries and fire cracker accidents, reported majority of the burn cases.
The Safdarjung hospital, with the largest burns unit in the country, received around 192 cases this Diwali, mostly cracker burns, with 25 cases being reported on November 10-11 and 167 cases on November 11-12.
“Out of the 167 cases, 132 were cracker burns, 10 were diya related burns and 25 were non-firecracker related burn injuries. While 157 were treated as out patients, 10 patients were admitted,” said Dr A K Rai, medical superintendent of Safdarjung hospital.
According to Dr Karoon Agrawal, head of the burns and plastic surgery department of Safdarjung hospital, of the total 167 patients, almost 50 per cent were children.
The hospital last year had received 234 cases of cracker burns on Diwali.
Around 85 patients with burns visited RML hospital out of whom, four patients had to be admitted as they suffered almost 30 per cent burns, said Dr V K Tiwari, HoD of the RML hospital’s Burns and Plastic Surgery department.
A total of 153 patients were sent back home after first aid at Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital while one patient was admitted, said said Dr Dhananjay Kumar, consultant Burn and plastic surgeon at GTB.
“We received around 153 patients who had suffered facial and hand injuries due to cracker bursting. One patient had to be admitted,” he said.
“Despite so much efforts being made to educate public on how to prevent such accidents, we had anticipated that the cases will go down on Diwali this year. But then people started pouring in since last evening and continued till today morning,” Kumar said.
The Lok Nayak Hospital received around 40-45 patients, including two admissions while Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital attended to almost 150 burn cases this Diwali.