Al Sadd Paediatric Emergency Center, the busiest facility of-its-kind in Qatar and under Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), attends to about 320,000 emergency cases a year, revealed a top official on Friday.
“Most emergency cases pertain to kids with infection, shock, low blood pressure, jaundice, respiratory problems, dust allergy and others viral infections,” explained Dr Khalid Alyafei, emergency physician and programme director, Paediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Programme, HMC.
Speaking to Gulf Times on the sidelines of the second annual Qatar Paediatric Emergency Medicine conference, he clarified that out of the emergency cases, 70% are non-urgent cases who are sent back after providing necessary care. 
"The rest are urgent and very urgent cases - the group of patients who need to be admitted in the facility for observation and require more care or further treatment.” 
Dr Alyafei described the conference as an opportunity for the participants to network and learn more about the paediatric care in the country, the latest developments in the field and share it among their colleagues.
“This year, we have a large number of participants including doctors, nurses and others paramedics amounting to over 500 participants. The three-day conference is exploring ways about the management of acute emergency cases. We are also discussing systematic treatment of diseases, especially those related to respiratory problems and cardiovascular issues. In addition, patient safety, child maltreatment and a set of diseases are some of the major topics discussed in the conference,” continued Dr Alyafei.
“Sometimes, the patients may have some signs of the diseases but in some other cases, there will not be any signs and can be difficult to diagnose the problem. We discuss such peculiar cases and share the findings and solutions with others. They will be aware of the issues if any such cases happen in their facilities. The participants are from a number of health facilities in the country and they will carry the messages to their colleagues and will enable them to be better prepared to solve the issues,” maintained the official.
“Today morning, we discussed the case of skin diseases and rashes that could be something simple and at times could be something life threatening and what could be the approach in both the cases. This is applicable to other cases and each speaker’s presentation deals with such cases. On each topic, the speaker highlights a main issue, addresses the pitfalls and provides solutions and necessary actions to over the situation,” he added.
Dr Alyafei also pointed out that the conference, this year, will deliberate on a number of topics that affect children and common diseases that are addressed at paediatric emergency centres. It will also address hospital care for children and other special treatments and pathologies related to children.
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