Light up your life the safe way

By Dr. Wijaya Godakumbura

Burn injuries are worse than any other injury because of the high degree of pain lasting weeks or months and the severe scarring that often follows. Some times there is destruction of one or both eyes and most fingers causing a severe disability.

When this happens to a bread winner he is incapacitated and the family often doomed. Those with extensive burns sometimes succumb to the injury. There are other ill effects too. The hospital staff has to spend a lot of time on these patients, and vast amounts of money are spent on treatment as burn care is costly.

The wide use of makeshift unsafe kerosene lamps due to poverty and ignorance is one of the main causes of burns.

Since these injuries have been occurring for over a century, the importance of prevention should have been clear to all. Yet, no organization took action to curb this menace until we did so in 1993. Our project has been widely acclaimed around the world having received awards including the Rolex, Reader’s Digest, Lindbergh, Presidential, National and Sarvodaya, and publicity in magazines like Science and Nature, National Geographic, TIME and Newsweek as well as in CNN and VOA. We have also made presentations at ten international burns congresses, and the Journal ‘BURNS’ has highlighted our work in a recent issue. This article describes our activities and how you could help those at risk through us.

Extent of the problem

Only 70% of houses in our country have electricity, while in four districts (Ratnapura, Moneragala, Polonnaruwa and Hambantota) it is under 50%. In Bangladesh it is 35% while in some African countries like Rwanda and Malawi it is around 10%. As there are 1.3 million homes lacking in electricity in Sri Lanka, there is wide use of kerosene and many use unsafe lamps made out of empty medicine bottles and fused bulbs. Being tall, narrow and light, they topple easily and the flammable kerosene then spills as there is no screw-on wick carrier. This often causes extensive burns. There are about 3,000 bottle lamp burns and about 120 deaths annually, and some times even houses get burnt up.

Prevention

As rural electrification is somewhat slow we launched a project to contain this scourge in a quicker way by designing a simple and inexpensive safe kerosene lamp. Our lamp, which is called ‘Sudeepa’

• Is short and heavy, so that it would not topple easily
• Has 2 flat sides, so that it would not roll if it does topple
• Has a screw-on metal lid, to prevent oil spill if it does topple
• Is simple enough, so that it is handy and capable of mass production at low cost
• Has a near globular shape and thick glass, so that it does not crack if it falls
• Could be used for several years, as there are no delicate or moving parts.

This lamp has been approved by six prestigious bodies including the WHO and the International Society for Burn Injuries (ISBI). We replace the unsafe lamps with our safe ones by selling at cost, and giving them out free when others meet the cost. We also warn people not to pour kerosene to burning lamps, and we educate them on how to use gas cookers carefully, how to extinguish the flames when clothes catch fire (‘stop, fall and roll’) and on first aid (‘water therapy’). We also did a two year study on burns.

Most people make unsafe kerosene lamps spending a mere Rs. 3 or 4 per lamp, and are unaware that they could maim and kill. So it is difficult to sell our lamps that cost relatively more. Further, we have neither vehicles nor retail outlets. We are thankful to the SPC for starting to sell our lamps in their 30 ‘Osusala’ outlets. We are now having discussions with ‘gemidiriya’ and ‘samurdhi’ authorities.

Tsunami relief work

It would be tragic if tsunami survivors were to face a second catastrophe! There must be many of them with no access to electricity yet. Further over 20% of kerosene burns are caused by unsafe lamps during power failures. So we should ensure that none of them uses unsafe kerosene lamps by giving two safe lamps to each family, which would cost only Rs 80.

Poverty alleviation

The emphasis as regards poverty alleviation seems to be on ‘income enhancement of poor families’. I think it should also be done through ‘prevention of incidents that would make a poor family incur unexpected, sudden and large expenses’. Our project does that.

When we get donations from various organizations including Rotary and Lions Clubs we give out the lamps free. Some of them do the distribution themselves, and at other times small NGOs in the villages like youth and women’s organizations undertake that work. We also do that when time permits. The unsafe lamps, which we ask people to bring, are buried later. Recently we sent 38,000 lamps to the Eastern Province for free distribution despite the tension there, with two organizations bearing the full cost. We have given out 700,000 safe lamps to date.

Injury prevention

“The vast majority of burns can be prevented” states the ISBI. “But there are very few successful prevention campaigns.” In the journal ‘BURNS’, two surgeons from the Oregon University (August 2000) stated that “More and more effective burn prevention programs are needed”. In 1993, the WHO stated thus

• “Injuries were the No. 1 cause of death among the young in 1989, but most nations don’t place injury prevention high on the list of priorities”.
• “Communities could execute excellent injury reduction programmes”

The writer is a Consultant Surgeon and President of the Safe Bottle Lamp Foundation in addition to being a member of the National Committee for Prevention of Injuries, the Prevention Committee of the International Society for Burn Injuries and the Lindbergh Grants Technical Review Panel