A world class health research centre in wound treatment is set to open at QUT Kelvin Grove.

Its work will target people suffering from chronic wounds commonly caused by diabetes and heart failure.

Jin Kok reports.

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TRANSCRIPT

It started out as an innocent blister, but turned into a living nightmare.

From the age of 13, Sam McKnoulty had to live with the pain of a wound that wouldn’t heal.

It got so bad that it affected his ability to attend school and do sport, even walking for long periods of time would cause him pain.

Sam McKnoulty, QUT student: “At stages I sort of just dealt with the pain, sort of thought I just had to live with it.”

That was until he sought treatment at Qut’s Wound Healing Community Outreach Service where they told him they could heal him.

Sam McKnoulty, QUT student: “After that long, if you start getting results you got to stick with it and it paid off in the end, pain went down in the first few weeks.”

The elderly and people suffering from diabetes are the most likely to benefit from the treatment available at the centre.

With Australia’s ageing population, it can expect many more patients in the future.

Adam Parker, Nurse QUT’s Wound Healing Community Outreach Clinic: “It is definitely changing people’s lives because in terms of their quality and life, they can actually move on with their lives and they don’t have to focus on their actual wound which they are currently doing.”

With $100 million pledged to the centre over the next eight years, the facility is already changing the way chronic wounds are being treated.

CEO Dr Stephen Prowes says that scientists and medical practitioners will work together to improve healing times and treatment methods of chronic wounds.

Dr Stephen Prowes, CRC CEO: “Using the best tools available and the best systems available and the best approaches available and taking that into the community in general to enable everyone to have access to that sort of treatment.”

The centre will officially open on the 8th of October.

Jin Kok, QUT News.