‘Shortage of health professionals poses challenge for running emergency services’

ISLAMABAD: Unavailability of male physicians as well as trained nurses and paramedics has emerged as a major challenge for the emergency rooms being run by ChildLife Foundation as over 80 percent of doctors coming out of medical schools are females, most of whom prefer to work in the day timings, officials claimed on Wednesday.

“On the other hand, trained nurses, paramedic and doctors are moving to other parts of the world, creating a huge gap of trained and qualified healthcare professionals in Pakistan,” claimed, Ahsan Rabbani, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the ChildLife Foundation while talking to newsmen at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad.

At the moment, the foundation is managing 13 model emergency rooms across the country.

Despite challenges, the new children’s emergency room at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad, managed by the foundation has successfully treated 200,000 children, since its establishment in August 2022. This milestone marks a significant achievement in combating child mortality rates in Pakistan, with the survival rate of critically ill children notably on the rise.

ChildLife’s impact extends far beyond PIMS, Islamabad, with a scalable and cost-effective model operating in 313 hospitals nationwide, including emergency rooms and Telemedicine Satellite Centers.