KARACHI, Nov 11: The Civil Hospital Karachi burns centre — the only referral health unit for burn injuries across the province — has witnessed an alarming increase in the number of admissions of electrical burn cases in recent years.

While 4,335 patients have been admitted to the burns centre since 2007, the number of electrical burns cases increased from 47 in 2007 to 74 last year, according to a report on hospitalised burns patients.

The potential danger of burns caused by electricity increased due to less attention of people in general to electrical safety, including unauthorised “hooking up even to the high-tension wires in the wake of high cost or rickety and inadequate power supply”, said a couple of doctors in their interview with Dawn.

The executive director of the burns centre, Dabir-ur-Rehman, said that apart from the challenging and complex management of electrical injuries by doctors and the more surgical intervention and hospitalisation time, patients’ sufferings, significant rate of amputation of upper extremities and other disabilities and considerable rate of mortalities were the aspects that called for educational programme for the people and those working in the electrical fields.

A teenage patient from Khuzdar (Balochsitan) undergoing treatment at the burns centre told Dawn that he was trying to connect a wire with a nearby high-voltage electrical system to run tube wells about 14 months back when a short circuit caused a blast and he fell onto the ground. He said he was rushed to the Bolan Medical College, where doctors amputated his affected left arm.

He was later shifted to the CHK burns centre for further treatment.

Lamenting his fate, he said: “Unlike previous attempts, I was holding the wire with my bare hands instead of using some stick or wooden piece at that time.”

Another teenage boy from Khuzdar also had to lose his arm besides getting other severe injuries due to his act of getting electricity from a transformer for agriculture purposes.

Dr Shahid Hussain, a physician at the burns centre, said that an 18-year-old boy living in Dadu was brought to the centre some weeks back. He had got severe burn injuries while connecting his fodder machine to a high-tension tower for power supply. The boy did not lose his limb but a finger that developed gangrene besides receiving severe injuries on his chest, buttock and left hand, the doctor said, adding that he was brought to the Liaquat Medical University hospital for a complex and strategic treatment.

Dr Hussain said that the electrical injuries represented a special type of thermal injury with a patho-physiology depending on voltage, current flow and resistance of the skin.

According to burns centre statistics, 47 electrical burns cases were registered in 2007, 44 in 2008, 52 in 2009, 82 in 2010, 74 in 2011 and 48 in the first nine months of this year. Of them, 319 were male and 27 female patients, while the overall mortality rate was 14.4 per cent with 50 deaths.

Dr Ehmer-Al-Ibran, a plastic surgeon and assistant professor at the burns department of the Dow University of Health Sciences, who has also completed a research study involving 336 male and 35 female patients afflicted with electric burn injuries, said that the most common age group involved was between 21 and 30 years, followed by 11 and 20 years. The mean age of the cases under study was 27.35 years, he said, adding that the rural and urban ratio remained 50:50.

He said that though power tariff hike coupled with outages and fluctuations could be seen as reasons for such injuries, negligence at workplaces, overconfidence of workers, non-observance of protective measures, including gadgets and gears, were the main causative factors.

The surgeon said that 66 per cent of electrical injuries involved upper limbs, including right hands, followed by injuries to leg and interior trunk. “Cases are reported from industries as well as households but the sad part of the story is that industries largely abstain from contacting their injured employees after rushing them to the hospital,” he said.

Referring to some other researches, Dr Al-Ibran said that job-related exposure to electricity was a common cause of such incidents. At the same time, little awareness in people about handling a patient after an accident caused a delay in their transportation to hospitals. Subsequently, patients were deprived of timely professional medical treatment, he added.

“A survey has found that medical care is generally sought only if there is a loss of consciousness, severe burns or fracture,” he noted and called for strict applications of electricity rules, proper designing, installation and maintenance of electrical devices and security training at work, employment of skilled individuals and use of labour standards and security system for high voltage.

When contacted, a Sindh government electrical inspector, Mohammad Hashim Rahopoto, said that his department had a role in ensuring perfect and hazard-free workplaces, but in 2003, the Sindh government had suspended implementation of certain clauses of the Electricity Act 1910 and Rules 1937 related to workplace safety.

Restoration of the inspection of industries by government electrical inspectors or introduction of legislation with some amendments might help have the essence of standardisation of occupational areas and use of trained workers to prevent electrical burns, he said.

KESC official Aminur Rehman said that for internal purposes, the power company followed certain SOPs and had guidelines for the safety of its employees. Besides, he added, the KESC run special awareness campaigns through the media particularly before monsoons.

In reply to a question, Mr Rehman said as far as easy access to bare live wires in residential and commercial areas or illegal acquisition of power by individuals were concerned, he believed that the KESC alone could not be blamed for that.

According to him, KESC lines existed in various parts of the city before buildings were constructed there and it was the responsibility of civic agencies and the building control bodies to remain watchful and also take special care while approving building plans or constructions.

Regarding those involved in power theft through illegally obtained makeshift connections, many of whom suffer electrical burns, the KESC officer said that communities should look into the issue and discourage such practice. He claimed that his company had already started insolating electrical wires in some areas within its jurisdiction.

The summary on burns patients hospitalised since January this year stated that 48 electrical burns patients, who constituted about nine per cent of total patients, were treated, while eight (17pc) of them died during treatment.

Since 2007, 4,335 burn patients have been admitted to the CHK burns centre. Of them, 7.82 per cent suffered electrical injuries.