Skin import saves life

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX health reporter

A continuing shortage of donors meant skin has had to be imported from the United States to help save the life of a severely burned woman at Middlemore Hospital.

The shortage has prompted another plea from specialists for people to consider signing on as skin donors.

Middlemore's burns unit co-director Stephen Mills said the woman suffered 45 per cent burns several weeks ago and needed donor skin to stop infection.

Middlemore, which has New Zealand's largest burns unit, did not have any donor skin, and had to order 4 sq m from a hospital laboratory in Texas.

It was not the first time the shortage had forced doctors to look overseas for the lifesaving skin.

Last year Dr Mills and his co-director Michael Muller had to order donor skin from a private cultivation lab in Brisbane. The shortage was sparked by a spate of serious burns cases over December, January and February.

At Middlemore and neighbouring Kidz First hospital, doctors dealt with at least five serious cases, including that of Gareth MacFadyen, who died after his grass skirt caught fire.

Donor skin, a temporary measure, is placed on weightbearing areas - the back, buttocks and thighs - which are most likely to be rubbed raw while the patient recovers in bed. The skin stays on for up to two weeks, helping to repair the blood vessels and to control pain.

Permanent grafts of artificial skin or skin taken from another part of the patient's body, then replace the donor skin.

Dr Mills had warned there was only enough donor skin left in Auckland to cope with one more serious case. This week he reiterated the need for more people to think about becoming donors.

Registering as a skin donor is done in the same way as for donating other organs, through the driver-licence system.

Dr Mills said anyone with burns to more than 30 per cent of their body was in the serious category, where the risk of infection was potentially fatal.