| Updated: 1/30 1:38 pm |
Published: 1/26 9:18 pm
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A new Associated Press survey released this week shows a third of patients admitted to burn centers across the country go there because of some encounter with meth.
It's a trend the Alexander Burn Center at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, the only burn center in our region, has been seeing.
Meth explosions leave behind scars on the meth cooks close to the fire and other people near the flames.
They say suspicious because often times a patient isn't honest.
“It could be meth related. Sometimes the patient will tell us. They will be open and honest, and there are times that they're not, and its just suspected,” Slay said.
According to the Journal of Trauma Injury and Critical Care, the average hospital stay for a meth-related burn victim costs $130,000.
“It’s daily washing of their wounds, ointments, and physical therapy,” says Slay of the treatment routine patients in the Burn Center must go through.
Eight years ago, the hospital thought the meth related burn epidemic had passed.
“When they limited the number of boxed of pseudoephedrine that you could buy, we did see a decrease in the people who came to the burn center.”
Now that the “shake and bake” method has caught on, the hospital says it is admitting more and more meth cooks.
“With the new way they make meth, they're going to come up with new ways to do anything. That's probably one of the reasons why we do have an increase right now.”
Often times meth users and those with meth related burns are the patients that don't have insurance. Hillcrest hospital says that's happening here and it quote “affects us significantly.”
