Logistics plays critical role in dramatic skin-graft op

The dramatic skingraft operation that was performed in Johannesburg early last week saw local forwarding agents QI Logistics arranging the urgent air couriering of skin grafts from the US to SA within a 24-hour time-span. And the critical rush-job was completed with time to spare, according to Marvin Naidoo, director of QI Logistics. QI arranged the medical courier transit with Quick International Courier – a US company that specialises in time-sensitive shipping, having formed a separate division to service the life sciences community in 1998. The specially cloned skin was delivered from the US to be grafted onto severely burnt three-year-old Pippie Kruger at the Garden City Clinic in Johannesburg. Pippie, who suffered from third-degree burns over 80% of her body, had had the skin cloned in a laboratory in Boston from small pieces of her own skin. The medical courier flew 18 hours to get the cloned skin to OR Tambo International Airport (Ortia) from Boston, carrying a sealed stainless steel container cooled at between two and eight degrees, inside of which were 41 four-by-five-centimetre patches of cloned skin After the operation, surgeon Dr Ridwan Mia said it went very well. Pippie will have scars, but these will be less than with a normal skin-graft procedure, and she has been kept sedated and immobilised for seven days to allow the grafts to take. “It was a bit heartstopping hoping that the shipment would get here within that critical 24-hour deadline,” Naidoo told FTW. “But, after we’d rushed the container to the hospital with a Netcare driver, the operation was able to start an hour early, and we were all able to relax.” A job well done. Get better soon, Pippie.