Posted By Richard Chalkley
Morning All,

I'd like to canvass opinion on the products sold by Water-Jel - www.waterjel.com

I am being asked by our Corporate EHS to include these in our First Aid kits.

Until now I have always stuck to the first aid techniques in the Tripartite First Aid book and it specifies that you only use water to cool burns.

Thoughts?

Richard.

Posted By Lynne Ratcliffe
As a result of this issue being raised in my workplace I checked with Occupational Health provider, in addition with my GP, a major trauma A&E nurse, Field medics (doctors and nurse) from the Army.
"It was confirmed that the burns dressings are considered as medicated, they do stick to wounds, they do leave behind a residue and they do cause flesh to be removed from a burn when they are taken off in hospital which is the first thing that paramedics and hospitals do! This does cause additional skin trauma. In addition the burns gel is the equivalent of an ointment, which again cannot be used as it is clearly a medication.
Therefore the opinion still holds that these dressings ARE medicated and should not be used by First aiders in the workplace. The contents of L74 are quite clear in the use of the phrase unmedicated dressings!
No first aider should be ordering any ‘wet’ or ‘medicated’ dressings as they are all informed on their training that only unmedicated and dry dressings should be used as anything done to a casualty causes greater distress being undone in the hospital (this includes the removal of residues from burns dressings). The only treatment we can give for a burn is to run with cold water and seek further medical assistance if required, if no further medical assistance is required the burn may be (after cooling) covered with a ‘clean, dry unmedicated dressing’.

If your first aider is a qualified nurse practitioner, trauma nurse from A&E or paramedic the advice maybe different but I do not believe we have a first aider of that caliber within the group"

This is answer that i put out when we had this issue, the result is that we do not have these dressings in our first aid box and we use the running water for ten minutes rule.

Hope this helps,
Cheers

Posted By Hilary Charlton
Yes, we use it as a matter of choice. However, we only buy the small sachets so you could not use this for a large burn as there is simply not enough.

For a welding wire burn or a small arm burn from touching a hot part it is absolutely ideal. All our first aiders are fully trained in how to deal with major burns but as a small item for small injury it is an excellent choice.

Hilary

Posted By Gary May
Keep it simple - Water-Jel - Not for me.

As an ex ambulanceman you would be suprised what is actualy applied to a burn victim - memories of burning flesh basted in a gel.

Not sure what the paramedics do now but in the simple days of first aid scoop and run we applied a cold compress such as a tea towel soaked in cold water to soothe over the burnt area.

After initial cooling under cool water. We sometimes covered the burn with cling film or a clean plastic bag and left it on until the medics had seen it.

The cling film was in layers rather than round like a bandage this prevented it causing any pressure if the burnt area swelled up.

The basics - NO pills NO potions NO lotions - still applies in immediate first Aid.

Posted By Richard Chalkley
Ok, curiosity got the better of me and I phoned the HSE.

As far as thay are concerned we can include them in our kits so long as we have trained the staff in their use.

15 - Love to the EHS Director.

Thanks for your help,

Richard

Posted By Richard Chalkley
Gary,

Personally, I will stick with water. As mentioned before I am a member of the voluntary services in addition to 1st aid at work, H&S etc.

In my St Andrews guise I cannot stray from the manual. Ever.

This said, the pressure from on high is there and I cannot find a good enough argument to sway him in my direction.

I also think that there must be some merit to this looking around so I feel that perhaps this is not worth arguing with him over.

Richard.

Posted By Richard McLellan
I and my colleagues have used this type of dressing 'in the field' and I have received patients with these dressings on in A&E. They work very well in reducing pain and are not difficult to peel / wash off without causing further skin damage. That cannot be said for any fabric dressing which is applied to a burn after it has been cooled by water. Cling film / plastic bags are OK, but don't remove as much heat as the mass of gel does. The laws of physics - greater heat capacity of gel due to its greater density. Downside is the expiry dates and the expense. UK equivalents are available (look for burn jel or gel in a search engine) at a better price.
Problem with running water is that it is not always available, 10 minutes is a very long time if there are other injuries / patients to treat. It probably adds bacterial contamination to the wound either from the handling required or the water itself. Ten minutes of water is not so good for large burns - difficult to do and can cause hypothermia. Full body gel blankets are avialable, whis is probably the only way for a First aider to treat this type level of injury.
Gel dressings are easy to apply ( 'suitable training' is a no-brainer), but they should be covered with further dressing, wrap in T bandage or plastic. Money can be saved by forgetting about dinky little ones - isolated minor hand burns are ok treated by 'hand under tap', infection is not a significant issue. Keep the burn gel for bigger burns 1% SA and over. How much are your people worth?

Posted By Kendo
I have been training first aid in the military for 20 yrs and we are now teaching to place a wet dressing over burns to stop any sticking and aid removal of the dressing.
Someone mentioned earlier about putting a dry dressing onto the wound, is this the civilian method and what would the thoughts be out there of the army method of appling wet dressings.
I think that water is still the best for cooling the burn area and within the military, we do not have vast quanities of water to waste but we still get by with the equipment that we are issued with.
Secondary infection can be sorted at the next level of treatment. We are just talking first aid here.

Posted By Chris Black
Richard

Having previously worked at a US-owned facility which I think is quite close to where you are, I can understand that you are ready to let the US based EHS director have his way on this. I would however strongly suggest that you get a senior person on site, either ops director or HR, to agree this change rather than simply implement it. In my experience a failure to generate enough paper to cover your exposed regions will ultimately be used against you by our cousins across the sea.

Posted By Chris Black
Richard

Well done, your misgivings are on record and you are placing the decision on the right shoulders, I agree that should cover you in the unlikely event that someone complains about the jel or the more likely event that company policy will change in the light of the first successful claim for damages in the US.

It's always best to cover yourself (though not necessarily in waterjel) since I have an old saying "Blame rarely sticks to a JC Penney suit"