This is how our BSG began

Burns unit at SGH starts support group to help patients

Singapore General Hospital has for the first time set up a support group for burns victims.The specialized burns unit at the hospital - which treats patients from all over the region - hopes the new group will speed patients' recovery.

The SQ006 crash in Taipei and the Jakarta Marriott bomb blast were both tragic events for victims who died and for those who survived but were burnt. Three years on, SAF Major Ang Ming Chuan, an SQ006 survivor, lives to tell the story of how he coped.

He and another burns patient, Freddy Neo, saw the critical need for a support group while they were in hospital, recovering together. Mr Neo said: "When we were injured we find that recovering from burns took a long time and there is no medicine that can help a burns patient except he himself that needs to go through therapy and exercises and putting on pressure garment diligently to suppress the scars."

That was what Carol Chia, who was at the Jakarta Marriott coffeehouse the day of the blast, is going through right now. She recalls the agony on the faces of her family, when they saw her in hospital. Carol said: "I have always felt that the emotional and spiritual part is 80 percent, 20 percent is a physical burn."

Such a support group recognizes that healing goes way beyond just the physical as there is the emotional trauma as well. Burns survivors in the group have been able to draw strength from those who have gone before them.

Badron Nishah Abdul Ghani, Burns survivor, said: "There are physiotherapists, psychologists, there're occupational therapists, these people are there to help you but you feel they don't understand because they haven't gone through it themselves." The support group organizes home visits, seminars and workshops to help people like Nishah, who suffered 60 percent burns from a kitchen explosion while she was in the US.