By: Arunima Joseph | Date - 13th May 2018

One can only fathom in their worst nightmare what a burn victim goes through. In a matter of seconds, their whole world crashes down, taking with it their life and soul. Physically disfigured and emotionally defeated, they go through years and years of peril.

The National burns centre, in Airoli was set up as a respite for such patients. It has only one motto, " To touch the life of suffering burns patients, understand their problems and provide solutions in terms of pain relief, scar management, deformity corrections and ultimately physical, psychological and social rehabilitation.

As a part of switch, we took up this visit to gain an insight into the treatment and rehabilitation of burns patients.

Under the guidance of Mrs. Sangeeta Panda mam, 20 of us from different colleges in Maharashtra learnt about the basics of burns and the recent innovations in the field.

They enlightened us about the novel concept of skin donation and walked us through the various procedures involved. Where the new techniques and research baffled us, our heart gave way on reaching the Intensive care units. We witnessed two burns patients battling for their life.

Having lost their son to the fire, they were fighting inch by inch back to life.

The doctors explained to us the state of the art equipment’s and the staffing facility there. They highlighted the lack of awareness about skin donation and the imbalance in demand and supply they were facing.

With the hope for giving these patients a new life, most of us pledged for skin donation.

After the hospital visit, we moved to the green periphery of the campus where they showed us around a beautiful butterfly garden.

The garden not only added to the beauty of the campus but also reminded us that all bad tides metamorphose into good ones.

A huge shootout to our team leaders and Switch India for giving us this wonderful opportunity!