Advanced Wound Care

Quick facts about lower limb ulceration:

• Eighty per cent have evidence of venous disease
• Ten to twenty-five per cent have evidence of arterial insufficiency to a variable degree
• Twelve per cent have co-existing diabetes
• Chronic venous insufficiency affects 2–10% of the general population
• Fifty per cent of ulcers have been present for >1 year
• Seventy-five per cent of ulcers are recurrent

Dr Weir has been an active member of the Wound Healing Association of Southern Africa (WHASA) since its inaugural meeting in 2005. He has served as President of the Association in 2010 and 2011. He has also completed the International Interdisciplinary Wound Care Course at the University of Stellenbosch in 2010.

Advanced peripheral vascular disease, chronic venous insufficiency and diabetes can sometimes present with very complex wounds, which requires an interdisciplinary team approach. Dr Weir has the advantage of formal training in General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Wound Care, which enables him to accurately assess, diagnose and treat the underlying disease responsible for the complex wound. Because he understands the complexity of these challenging wounds, he is a member of a larger interdisciplinary team that is able to address not only clinical issues, but also patient centred concerns.

The team will at all times manage a patient with a wound according to the Wound Bed Preparation paradigm.




The whole team is trained in and involved in basic wound care at the practice. Dr Weir takes charge of to the management of complex wounds. Stefan Dippenaar and the personnel of Ward 9 take care of the hospital patients. A whole network of wound care practitioners collaborate with our team, when patients are managed on an outpatient basis. Special mention must be made of the longstanding collaboration with Sr Renate Wannenburg, who has become an indispensable extended member of our team, even though she works in her own practice.

Sr Renate Wannenburg