Give burn survivors access to rehabilitation

Helping burned children in Central America 5

Since 2011, Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation has been carrying out training for burn rehabilitation professionals in Central America, with a focus on teaching pressure garment production techniques to burn therapists and seamstresses from the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. This year (2014) marks the end of a four-year training cycle which has resulted in many changes at the individual and organizational levels.

Sunshine Foundation CEO, Ching-Shyen SHU, explains: “The majority of burn victims in Central America are small children who often come from disadvantaged socio-economic background. We want to make sure that pressure garments are not a prohibitively priced and thus inaccessible commercial product, but instead are an integral part of professional rehabilitation services offered by therapists. We are extremely happy to have found organizations that share our philanthropic vision of offering free burn rehabilitation services, and are proud of their efforts over the last four years to bring quality services to burned children in the region.”

Apart from enhanced technical skills for measuring, making patterns and sewing pressure garments, the training has also resulted in closer cooperation between therapist and seamstress (whereas before seamstresses generally worked alone), and has also brought many changes to improve work process and increase efficiency. What is more, a survey done between December 2013 and February 2014 with our partners in Nicaragua and Guatemala has shown a marked increase in satisfaction on the part of patients and their family. Indeed, compared to garments made with the old technique, satisfaction with garments made by using the new Sunshine technique jumped from 22% to 93% for fit, from 16% to 84% for comfort, and from 13% to 89% for esthetics. Because garments are more comfortable and look better, burned children are also more willing to comply with the wearing regimen (garments must be worn 23 hours a day, and are only removed when showering). More importantly, 52% of patients reported complications like blisters, edema or small wounds with old garments, but this dropped to 3% with garments made using the new Sunshine technique.

Although the four-year pressure garment training program is over, Sunshine Foundation's committment to the region remains, and we are now working closely with its partners in Central America to develop future burn rehabilitation trainings and continue to build the capacities of therapists in the region, thus ensuring that burned children have access to free, quality burn rehabilitation.