The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), the global health initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), has announced the development of a new Paediatric Trauma Pain Management Manual in Arabic and English to support clinicians in conflict zones.
The manual is being developed in conjunction with the UK-based Paediatric Blast Injury Partnership.
The Arabic version of this manual was developed by WISH with the support of the Translation and Interpreting Institute of Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
After initially being used in Syria and Yemen, more than 1,000 copies of this version have been distributed to medics in Gaza since November 2023.
WISH also facilitated the translation of the blast injury manuals into Ukrainian and Russian, and copies of these versions have been distributed across Ukraine by the charity Save the Children.
The new manual will address how clinicians can manage children’s pain not only at the point of their blast injury, but through the acute care pathway and in the months and years following injury.
Doctors undergoing training in Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) from Gaza, along with pain experts in Qatar, will join other clinicians and academics in paediatrics and pain management from Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, the University of Bath, and Kidconfident.org. in producing the manual.
WISH convened a Pain Management Clinical Focus Group in Doha to further guide the content of the manual to better support clinicians in Palestine and conflict zones worldwide.
Around 30-40 Qatar-based clinicians with first-hand experience in Palestine and conflict settings attended including pain experts from Sidra Medicine and HMC, as well as doctors from Gaza and the West Bank who are currently enrolled in the fellowship training in HMC.
Project lead Dr Paul Reavley, paediatric emergency medicine consultant at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, said: “Paediatric care in conflict zones is often delivered by clinicians who have little experience in treating children. We are looking to give doctors working on the ground in conflict zones both the tools and the confidence to treat children experiencing the horrific and painful consequences of blast injuries, which in turn will allow for better assessment, treatment, and communication with children, from injury to rehabilitation and beyond.”
The manual will be officially launched at the WISH 2024 international healthcare summit, taking place on November 13-14 in Doha.
Dr Abdullatif AlKhal, deputy chief medical officer and director of the Department of Medical Education at HMC said: “For many years, Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health has brought physicians from Palestine to Doha to help them develop the necessary skills and competencies in different specialties leading to board certification that they can then take home with them and use to treat their patients back in Gaza and the West Bank.
"Working together with the Paediatric Blast Injury Partnership and WISH, we have the best chance of developing a Paediatric Pain Management Manual that will provide vital support to healthcare professionals working on the ground in conflict zones in Gaza and elsewhere.”
Sultana Afdhal, chief executive officer, WISH, added: “Given the suffering of the growing number of severely injured children in Gaza, we knew that there was a chronic need for a focus on pain relief. Speaking with Paul Reavley made it clear that developing a follow-on manual to the Paediatric Blast Injury Field Manual would be an effective way to provide help.”
Dr Paul Reavley, Dr Abdullatif AlKhal, and Sultana Afdhal.
