Dr Michael Bryant. 40895



By Charlene Gatt



DOCTOR Michael Bryant knows sunburn.

Not the hot-to-touch red tinge most Aussies get after a day in the sun, but the scalding kind that blisters the skin.

And as the City of Maribyrnong braces for the summer’s hottest month, Dr Bryant is expecting to see more and more cases through Western Hospital’s emergency department.

“We see people coming in at times blistering up and it’s almost like a proper burn from a fire because they’ve been out for so long,” he said.

“They turn bright red and it’s very painful on the day they get the burn, but it’s usually the next day that they start getting blisters. Usually, they’re small, but occasionally we get people with quite large ones.”

His worst case was a woman in her early twenties whose only cover from the sun had been the bikinis she was wearing.

“Everywhere, but the bathers that she was wearing was red, and her shins started peeling when I saw her, and she’d started getting blisters up to a centimetre or more in diameter over parts of her body.”

And just as bad sunburn is a common problem for teens and young adults, dehydration hits a lot of elderly residents, especially those that live alone or at aged care facilities.

“The trap with those is that they often stay in bed on really hot days; they don’t get out of bed and they just lie there with lots of blankets on and aren’t found until the end of the day.”

Dr Bryant’s top tip for staying cool during 30-plus degree days is to drink lots of water, turn on fans and airconditioners early in the day and to stay indoors as much as possible. If you don’t have any cooling, head to a shopping centre or anywhere else that does and spend the day there.

The plus side of living around Footscray, Dr Bryant said, was the lack of people coming in with snake bites, with the last bite being treated more than 12 months ago.

But the searing temperatures also cause the emergency department to flood with people that have been in fights thanks to shorter tempers and increased alcohol intake.