KEY POINTS:
A single callout to a clandestine P-lab can cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars and tie up resources for days.
The explosion of a P-lab near Wellsford, 89km north of Auckland, last Saturday left two men with life-threatening burns needing multiple operations. One of the men, 33-year-old Kristin Climo, later died.
That one incident involved more than 10 Fire Service vehicles, three ambulances, a rescue helicopter and more than 50 medical and emergency response staff. More than a dozen of them, including doctors and nurses who treated the injured, had to be decontaminated after being exposed to potentially hazardous substances.
Among them were three staff members at the Wellsford Medical Centre, where the men were first treated after being driven there by a girlfriend of one of them.
Spokesman Dr Tim Malloy said the cost was still unclear but could "potentially be in the thousands of dollars".
The callout cost St John Ambulance between $10,000 and $12,000. Auckland district operations manager Pauline Mellor said St John's special emergency response team attended about three P-lab-related callouts a week, even if no fire or explosion was involved.
Also on hand are ESR, which has a specialist team of 12 to attend to P-lab-related work. Forensic programme manager Dr Keith Bedford said typically two people, a scientist and a technician, attended a callout.
Dr Richard Wong She, clinical leader for burns at Middlemore Hospital's National Burns Centre, said P-related burns made up only a small percentage of cases.
He said the true cost of a burn injury was far beyond the cost of initial treatment, and was probably "in the hundreds of thousands".
