Newtown Rotary Learns Of

Shriners’ Devotion To Children’s Care

George Mattegat and Art Luf presented a program at the Newtown Rotary Club meeting on the Shriners’ Burn Center Hospital in Boston, which serves the New England Area. Art Luf is currently on the board of governors at the hospital and as a retired fireman appreciates the value of such an institution.

During World War II, much was learned about treating burns by the Air Force. The only burn hospital in the United States was located at the Air Force Base in Galveston, Texas. The Shriners hospitals are specifically for children and since the burn center in Galveston was for adults they opened their Galveston Burn Center Hospital in 1966. They now have four burn center hospitals; the one in Cincinnati opened in 1968; Boston’s in 1968 and Sacramento’s in 1997.

Bridgeport Hospital is the only burn center in Connecticut but is not specifically for children, so children are normally sent to the Shriners’ Hospital in Boston, which has recently been improved and enlarged at a cost of $400 million.

There is no charge for a child to receive care at any of the Shriners’ 22 hospitals. All care and services provided are totally without charge to the patient and family. Money to operate the 22 hospitals comes from gifts, bequests, income from the endowment fund, hospital fund-raising events, and the annual assessment paid by every Shriner.

Mr Luf said one 14-year-old boy with burns over 70 percent of his body was in the hospital four months  and is now back in sports. The Shriners operate a burn camp in Massachusetts. Another boy at the camp, who had 98 percent body burns, although not able to function as before, is now taking computer courses to help him in his future life.

In the past, many family members hid their relatives with severe burns; but the Shriners work both to improve their appearance and to counsel families to accept the burned children and not to hide them away.

Much experimentation and research is done in these burn hospitals. A person’s body will only accept their own skin, but thanks to research one square inch of skin the size of a postage stamp can now be stretched to cover a 3-foot area on a burn victim.

The Shriners also operate three other specialty hospitals. These are devoted to spinal cord injuries and are located in Philadelphia, Chicago and Sacramento.

The next time we see the Shriners in a parade driving their funny little cars and motorcycles or hear them playing their banjos or other instruments we should give them a big cheer, not only for entertaining us at the moment, but for taking care of so many of our children.