Case study
Elizabeth’s story
28 Oct, 2026
Elizabeth, 12, has been under the care of our Burns Centre since she was just a baby. It’s become a second home for her, and she knows more than most just how important it is to have a healing environment when you’re trying to recover from injuries and operations.
Elizabeth and her family were living in Qatar when, at just six-months-old, Elizabeth’s cot caught fire after an air conditioning unit malfunctioned. She received full thickness burns to 60 per cent of her body and had to be flown by air ambulance to our hospital, an internationally renowned centre of excellence for paediatric burns.
Thankfully, Elizabeth survived, but endured months in hospital undergoing complex plastic surgery and reconstruction operations. To date, Elizabeth has received over 100 operations and procedures, including reconstruction of her face, arms and hands, skin grafts, releases of skin grafts and laser treatment. She also has regular physiotherapy and occupational therapy to treat her scars and ensure her range of movement is maintained. She will need many more operations into adulthood as she continues to grow.
During her years of treatment at our Burns Centre, Elizabeth has been cared for as an inpatient and outpatient. Under plans for the Burns Centre, donations will be used to reconfigure and update both areas, creating a new high-dependency room for the most critical patients, upgrading two patient rooms, introducing a dedicated laser treatment room, plus transforming our outpatient reception to make it more welcoming for patients ahead of appointments, and more.
Elizabeth is fully behind the appeal and says:
“The hospital has been a huge part of my life since I was a baby. For kids like me, who come here a lot, it needs to be somewhere they want to be, if they need to be here. It’s important that it looks nice and friendly. It needs to be a place they feel happy, so I think it’s great the hospital is making these changes.
“For anyone thinking of giving money to the Burns Centre Appeal, I’d say go for it. You’ll be helping a lot of children.”
