Mass Burns Casualties: Ethical Dilemmas

Mass burns casualty disasters occur rarely, but they are difficult to manage. Management of these cases are often further complicated in poorly resourced settings found in the developing world as triage decisions often have to be made early. This case report discusses ethical dilemmas that have been encountered when treating a mass burns casualty’s incident in the setting of a regional burns unit in South Africa

A Tragic Miscommunication: Ethical Decision Making in Burns Care

Patients with extensive burns injuries are often given a poor prognosis. Those who survive after an initial early resuscitation phase often require extensive operative and critical care input, a prolonged hospital stay, and associated significant complications. The overwhelmingly high volume of patients already using the resource-stricken burns care service places extreme pressure on clinicians in respect of decisions they make about who should and should not be resuscitated. In this paper, we present the case of a young woman who sustained significant burn injuries, and discuss the ethical dilemmas encountered during the subsequent management of her care