CHENNAI : The State Health department is soon going to inaugurate a first-of-its kind Paediatric Tamil Nadu Accident and Emergency Initiative (TAEI) programme for exclusively treating paediatric trauma and emergency cases in the State at the Institute of Child Health, Egmore.
The Rs 100 crore-programme funded by Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) will function under the Paediatric Emergency department, Institute of Child Health.Under the set-up, the children brought to the Paediatric TAEI will be treated under three categories based on the nature of emergency: red, yellow and green. Very critical children will be shifted to red colour coded unit, non-critical to yellow and minor injuries to green colour coded unit.
The Paediatric TEAI is being set up at the Administrative block of the Institute for better access to laboratory and other test facilities. According to doctors at the Paediatric Emergency department, “The Institute has been seeing increase in the number of trauma cases among children, so such a set-up will save many lives.”According to the department’s data on children presented with trauma from December 2017 to October 2018, cases of children with fall tops the list, next was head injury, followed by road traffic accident cases and assault.
The department saw a total of 164 cases in December, 182 in January, 165 in February, 184 in March, 179 in April, 141 in June, 100 in July, 149 in August, 63 in September and 136 in October. Speaking to Express, Dr Indumathy Santhanam, head, Paediatric Emergency department, Institute of Child Health, said, “With the increase in the volume of children with trauma and emergency recently, such a dedicated system is the need of the hour. Treating adult trauma cases is different from treating paediatric cases. If inaugurated, this would be the first-of-its kind exclusive centre for treating paediatric trauma and emergency cases.”
“It is a 20 bedded-facility. The centre will also have High Dependency Unit for children who are stabilised in ICU, so that more children can be accommodated in the ICU,” said Dr Indumathy.However, not all are optimistic about the initiative. “There should be a dedicated team for treating paediatric trauma and emergency cases. So, at least 20 doctors and nurses should be recruited and posted in the unit. They should have been trained in the paediatric trauma and emergency care. Without manpower, the dream project will lie idle without any use,” a senior doctor added.
Meanwhile, Dr A T Arasar Seeralar, Director and Superintendent, Institute of Child Health said, “There is no need for additional manpower. The department acts as a training centre for doctors in emergency medicine. So, these trainers and also medical officers trained under TAEI will be mobilised to the unit. The facility will be inaugurated in another 15 days,” he added.