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Delivery 604-942-3081 • Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Giving back: Barb Walter Venne has never forgotten PAGE 11
Your source for local sports, news, weather and entertainment! >> www.burnabynow.com IN BURNABY HOSPITAL
For a video and more photos scan with Layar
Maggots at work
Stefania Seccia staff reporter
There’s maggots in Burnaby Hospital, but don’t worry, they’re meant to be there. An antiquated and seemingly strange medical application of maggots for nonhealing wounds popularly used at Burnaby’s hospital is now becoming a product two private companies are trying to commercialize. Superna Life Sciences and Monarch Labs have applied for regu“Every now and latory approval then we get an to make Medical Maggots, a preescapee.” scription-only medical therapy LISA HEGLER nurse used to clean non-healing wounds. Lisa Hegler is a registered nurse and wound-care professional at Burnaby Hospital, and she spearheaded the maggot debridement therapy where she works, and says she’s benefited from using maggot therapy on more than 100 patients. “It’s an old way of doing things,” Hegler told the Burnaby NOW in a phone interview. “It dates right back to the Napoleon civil wars.”
Jason Lang/burnaby now
Creepy-crawly healers: Registered nurse Lisa Hegler has led maggot therapy for non-healing wounds at Burnaby Hospital, where she works. Hegler hopes Health Canada will recognize the therapy as a valid medical treatment that she says is very successful. The therapy involves a sickly wound open to infection that is grey, green or brown, and two millimetre in length maggots. “They’re little larvae,” Hegler explained.
“Very, very tiny. It’s not what you see in the movies.” However, the maggots do get bigger after 48 hours in the wounds – growing up to 10 or 15 times in size.
“Wounds are painful to begin with,” Hegler added. “The 48-hour period can be uncomfortable.” Maggots Page 8
Advocate says slow process leading to tree cutting Stefania Seccia staff reporter
By January, Burnaby’s tree bylaw will have a bigger bark, but the two years it took to get to this point is worrying a local tree enthusiast. In 2011, local resident Donna Polos presented to council and called for stricter rules around cutting down trees in the city.
This past summer, the city came back with amendments, including bigger permit fees and guidelines around tree cutting. “I’ve been waiting two-and-a-half years,” Polos told the Burnaby NOW. “I wish it had been done in six months to a year. I kept phoning the city and asking city hall, and it was really frustrating.” Polos said since the summer, two properties near her home in South Burnaby
went on a tree-cutting rampage: one home cut down about 70 per cent of its tree, while the other cut down all of them. Polos speculates it was done to avoid the stiffer fines and process outlined in the bylaw amendments. “The thing is, my concern is when people caught wind of this whole thing – when city hall put out the changes to the bylaw – people were clear cutting,” she noted.
“I’m worried people are going to get wind of this now, and between now and January we’ll have a multitude of people taking them down.” Despite the wait, Polos said she’s happy with the changes being made. “I am very pleased with what they had proposed,” she added. “I’ve lived in this Bylaw Page 4
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