Pediatric Emergency Care project
“if very sick children are identified soon after their arrival in the health facility, and treatment is started immediately, many in-hospital deaths could be prevented”
The pediatric emergency care project is one of four projects run by a partnership between Region Stockholm, Jinja City, Uganda, the Ugandan NGO Busoga Health Forum and PHI. The partnership is being funded by International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) until 2025. The pediatric emergency care project supports the implementation and sustainability of an evidence based structured management of severely sick children in the Busoga region. A district wide assessment of current obstacles and opportunities for quality emergency care was performed in health facilities in the Busoga region in 2022, and the findings are being used to identify priority areas for the project. An initial training workshop on Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment plus (ETAT+) guidelines was held at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital in March 2023.
In September 2023 colleagues from Jinja visited Stockholm for a two-week period. During their visit, they were attending different wards at Astrid Lindgren’s Children's hospital, participating in workshops, and engaging in seminars, to develop implementation strategies for improving pediatric emergency care.
Karolinska University Hospital Solna September 2023
The doctors and nurses from Jinja also started their training at Karolinska Center for Advanced Medical Simulation and Training (CAMST) to become ETAT facilitators.
The plan is to use Jinja Regional Referral Hospital as a training hub for the surrounding hospitals. The Swedish participants benefit from the partnership by being exposed to managing diagnoses that are uncommon in Sweden.
The ETAT guidelines were initially created by the WHO to facilitate the management of children with severe illness in low income settings. Developments of the guidelines include added conditions and continued care during admission.
Deaths in hospital often occur within 24 hours of admission. Many of these deaths could be prevented if very sick children are identified soon after their arrival in the health facility, and treatment is started immediately.
The implementation of the ETAT+ guidelines is a main focus area for the Pediatric Emergency Care Project within the regional partnership between Stockholm and Jinja/Busoga.
In December 2023 another ETAT+ course was held at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital involving participants from six general hospitals in the Busoga district with a mixed team of facilitators from Jinja Regional Referral Hospital and Karolinska University Hospital.