KARACHI: Experts at an emergency medicine conference on Saturday highlighted a staggering fact that one in 10 Pakistani children do not live to see their fifth birthday while medical emergencies and injuries are significant contributors to child deaths.

Public awareness was visibly lacking with government support and legislation for emergency care needs of children nowhere in healthcare facilities, the experts noted at the third annual emergency medicine conference held at the Aga Khan University (AKU).

“While children in Pakistan are still dying of old diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, there is a new wave of diseases along with a major threat of road traffic injuries, cases of drowning and home-based injuries that healthcare professionals need to deal with,” said Dr Junaid Razzak.

Properly trained and skilled specialists providing early diagnosis and proper treatment could lead to a notable decline in paediatric morbidity and mortality, he added.

Dr Razzak said there was an alarming rise in the number of children being brought to emergency departments, citing his private hospital’s emergency department where one of every four patients was a child.

The audience was informed that public and private hospitals across the city had a combined total of 250 ventilators to cater for an estimated 18 million people and only 20 of the ventilators were dedicated to paediatrics.

“Pakistan is burdened with seven per cent of global child mortality and with more than 50 per cent of the country’s population below the age of 20 years, there is an urgent need to focus on paediatric emergencies,” said Dr Nadeem Qureshi, chair, International Emergency Medicine Programme, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The conference on ‘Emergency Care for Children’ — organised by the AKU emergency medicine department and Johns Hopkins University-Pakistan Fogarty International Collaborative Trauma and Injury Research Training Programme — invited local and international experts to highlight the importance of emergency medicine, especially paediatric emergency care.

Paediatric emergency medicine is a highly specialised field and both paediatricians and emergency medicine doctors need to undergo further training once they complete their respective specialisations. Emergency medicine provides timely interventions in medical emergencies and needs to be recognised as a separate field of specialisation.

“There is a global recognition that the first hour of emergency care belongs to emergency medicine especially in cases of trauma, shock and where resuscitation is required,” said Dr Qureshi. In such situations, he added, morbidity and mortality could be significantly reduced by skilled emergency healthcare professionals.

Emergency medicine, a relatively new field in the country, was recognised by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan in 2010. However, paediatric emergency medicine is still not on the public and government radar. At present, healthcare professionals here are receiving on-the-job training in paediatric emergency medicine, yet it is lacking in qualified professionals because of no formal recognition.

The experts highlighted the need for legislation to define standards for paediatric emergency care, including professional skills, equipment and systems. They urged medical institutions to focus on human capacity development in emergency care through education, training and customising global practices to fit local requirements.