The whole idea of this chat forum is to provide a balance view...

The whole idea of this chat forum is to provide a balance view not to discredit a company. As you are aware, all start up company tends to have issues.

We yet to find out what the new CEO's strategy for CCE and whether it is business as usual or he will outline his new strategy.

Read some of the comments from Concord Hospital

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Pioneering Perth doctor treats Bali burns victims
Reporter: Mick O'Donnell


KERRY O'BRIEN: While injured victims of the Bali bombing are being treated around the country, some of the worst burns cases are at Royal Perth Hospital.

Many are being treated by a method developed over the past eight years at Royal Perth which its inventors claim is a significant advance.

Patients' own skin cells are harvested, cultured and sprayed back onto their injured bodies.

But if the spray-on method is as revolutionary and as beneficial as its inventors claim, why hasn't it yet been taken up by burns units around the country?

Mick O'Donnell reports.

MICK O'DONNELL, REPORTER: She's gutsy, she's fast and some say she's the best in the country.

Burns surgeon Fiona Wood says the crucial factor in treating burns victims is speed -- literally cutting off the injured skin layers and then getting the patient's own skin cells back on as fast as possible.

But behind the technique, the fast operator is a mother of six children deeply affected by the plight of her patients.

FIONA WOOD, DIRECTOR, ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL BURNS: I hear the stories, I know what they're going through.

I can feel their anguish.

The mother who looks at me and says, "I've lost a daughter.

Please don't lose this daughter or mine."

The mother who says, "My husband died six weeks ago, this is my only son."

You cannot be unaffected by that.

MICK O'DONNELL: While conventional skin culture can take weeks, Fiona Wood, with medical scientist Marie Stoner, has developed a technique of spraying skin cells cultured from the patient's own skin.

Their technique reduces the culture time for new skin to five days.

MARIE STONER, MEDICAL SCIENTIST: We harvest it, the biopsy, put the cells in.

And we have cells ready anywhere from day five.

DR PETER MAITZ, CONCORD HOSPITAL BURNS UNIT: That Cellspray -- using it as a spray was an idea that came out of Perth -- was a personal success from Fiona Wood and Marie Stoner.

Both of them have to be congratulated on the technique.

However, it is not the answer to burn treatment in total.

It is one of the options we have to try and help our patients.

FIONA WOOD: I believe that the treatment that we use does reduce scarring.

It's beholden upon me now to actually prove that and prove that scientifically.

And certainly we've worked a long way towards that.

And this group of patients has certainly hastened that up.

Scarring is my focus.

I want people to regenerate, not repair.

And, as part of all that, in my hands, skin culture is a very important tool that I use on a daily basis.

MICK O'DONNELL: Some of the patients from Bali have burns covering up to 80 per cent of their bodies.

Another advantage of the Perth technique is it needs much less undamaged skin to culture -- a piece the size of a 20-cent coin.

FIONA WOOD: With Cellspray, we only need a small piece, and then we grow that up in the lab, and it can be put back on to cover the entire body in one or two operating procedures.

MICK O'DONNELL: Conventional grafting is delayed by waiting for a patch of new skin to grow so further skin grafts can in turn be grown from that.

MARIE STONER: You have to wait for that healthy skin to grow back before you can reharvest it to graft onto an injured site.

MICK O'DONNELL: Which really could be weeks?

MARIE STONER: Quite easily could run into weeks, yes.

MICK O'DONNELL: Royal Perth has been treating 25 burns patients from the bombing with this cell culture technique.

Fiona Wood says her unit has been able to cut down the length of time they'll have to spend in hospital.

FIONA WOOD: We have had in the last decade a 30 per cent reduction in our average length of stay, yes.

That is not just skin culture.

That is the whole focus team looking at every little which way we can improve the whole system.

DR PETER MAITZ: You need to use the best technology and use it quickly in order to obtain the best possible result.

MICK O'DONNELL: And, as far as Labor MP for Swan Kim Wilkie is concerned, the best technology and results are here in Perth.

He and Liberal MP Dr Mal Washer are asking the Federal Government to pay for the Perth-style treatment for all Bali bombing patients.

KIM WILKIE, LABOR MP: We can, if we act quickly, get this technology in use right across Australia.

It's a life-long impact, and that's one of the reasons we need to act quickly to try and alleviate the scarring.

MICK O'DONNELL: Though the treatment is more expensive than conventional skin grafting, Kim Wilkie says the Federal Government should make a one-off addition to State hospital funds, especially for Bali.

KIM WILKIE: Discuss the benefits of using this technology, the benefits to the Commonwealth of actually providing money to the hospitals in the eastern States so they don't have a reason based around costs for not using the technology and actually get it out there and get it happening.

DR PETER MAITZ: The main difference, I believe, between the two approaches is that our laboratory is run and owned by the Concord Hospital, a public institution.

MICK O'DONNELL: One of the complications is that the Cellspray technique developed in Perth is now being promoted by a private medical research company, C3.

In Sydney, Concord Hospital's burns unit says it can produce a similar cultured skin itself without having to pay for C3's product.

KIM WILKIE: The laboratory in Perth is a privately owned, privately run profit agency.

So that is a company that enables surgeons to use this technique, but somebody has to pay for it.

MICK O'DONNELL: But, regardless of different techniques, Fiona Wood says all the burns units around the country are working day and night to do their best for the Bali victims.

FIONA WOOD: They're fantastic teams everywhere.

These are people I know well, that I know have pulled out all stops to do the very best they can.

I think we've got to really focus on the positive things of this situation and how well the burns community in Australia has performed and how well we've been able to implement surgery in the time-frame that we have.

And then, when the dust settles, we'll all sit down and say, "How can we do it better next time?"