Only five public hospitals have child emergency facilities

NGO tasked with forming child emergency units at hospitals every 30km in Karachi

KARACHI: Emergency health services for children in Karachi are in a dismal state. Most public health facilities in the city do not have facilities to treat children in emergency situations.
According to an estimate, around 40 per cent of the 20 million residents of Karachi are under 12 years of age. For such a large population, only five government hospitals provide emergency services for children. These are the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), Sindh Government Korangi Hospital, New Karachi Hospital, Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital and Lyari General Hospital. The child emergency services at the first three hospitals are managed through financial support of a non-governmental organisation (NGO), while the children emergency unit at Civil hospital is managed by the hospital’s administration.
The Childlife Foundation is the NGO that has been managing child emergencies at NICH, Korangi and New Karachi hospitals. The total number of beds at the child emergency departments of these hospitals are 55, 80 and eight respectively.
On the other hand, there are very few private hospitals in Karachi that provide emergency services for children. According to Indus Hospital Chief Executive Officer Dr Abdul Bari Khan, the hospital has an arrangement of 25 beds for child emergencies, whereas a spokesperson of the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), said the AKUH has 13 beds to deal with child emergencies. Other private hospitals in the city do not offer child emergency facilities. However, many such hospitals do have dedicated children’s wards to deal with regular cases.



According to a report, Pakistan ranks third in the world in terms of the highest number of children’s deaths. Many reasons are cited for this lamentable state, which include the absence of child emergency facilities at hospitals.
According to health experts, the government should establish dedicated child emergency units at all district hospitals to reduce the child mortality rate. Commenting on the issue, NICH Executive Director Prof Jamal Raza said that an estimated 7.5 million children reside in Karachi. “With the given child population, every public hospital in Karachi should have dedicated resources and beds to deal with child emergencies,” he said.
Addressing the problem
To deal with the lack of child emergency units at public hospitals, the health department has signed an agreement with Childlife to set up child emergency units in all districts of Karachi.
According to the agreement, every public hospital at a distance of 30 kilometres (km) will have a specialised unit to cater to children requiring emergency treatment.

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Childlife Foundation Deputy General Manager Syed Asad Agha told Daily Express that the NGO was setting up a 50-bed child emergency unit at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. It inaugurated a 54-bed unit at the Lyari General Hospital on Thursday. “The facilities will start operations in April,” he said, adding that their next target is Government Hospital Saudabad. Agha explained that the NGO was set to establish child health emergency services in hospitals every 30km in each district of Karachi. In June, the Childlife Foundation will start work to develop child emergencies in public health facilities of rural Sindh, he added.
According to health experts, the government must ensure provision of 10,000 beds to deal with child emergencies in Karachi. The experts claim that the city reports over 9,000 child emergency cases daily, of which only 2,000 are treated at public hospitals. Many large public hospitals in the city, including Liaquatabad Hospital, Saudabad Hospital and Qatar Hospital, are completely devoid of child emergency services.
A high number of child casualties at hospitals are reported between 8pm and 7am because of the absence of senior child specialists during that time. Keeping this situation in view, the health department has signed an agreement with Childlife Foundation, under which the child emergency services at all public hospitals will have telemedicine facilities. Childlife Foundation head Dr Ahsan Rabbani says that the NGO is working hard to extend telemedicine services to all parts of Sindh so that all public hospitals can deal with child emergencies late at night.

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Telemedicine facilities at public hospitals can greatly assist in the provision of crucial health advice in remote areas, which would help reduce the child mortality rate, he said.