KARACHI, Dec 9: Speakers at a medical congress stressed the need for developing regional cooperation in the field of critical care with an emphasis to benefit the poor masses of South Asia.
The Second South Asian Critical Care Congress was inaugurated on Friday night by Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro, while technical sessions and plenary lectures were conducted on Saturday at a hotel.
About 500 delegates from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ireland, Australia and Egypt are participating in the congress, which will continue on Sunday as well. The Department of Anaesthesiology, Surgical Intensive Care and Pain Management of Civil Hospital Karachi is holding the congress in collaboration with the Pakistan Society of Intensive Care.
On Saturday, several lectures were delivered highlighting the modern innovative researches in the filed of critical care medicine.
In his presentation on ‘Treatment withdrawal-an ethical dilemma’, Prof R.K. Mani, president of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicines, said time had come that countries in the South East Asian region should develop a protocol for intensive cares in line with the social, cultural and religious practices of people of the region.
Jeanne from Ireland delivered a lecture on haemodynamic monitoring, while Anjolie Chhabra from India discussed the airway management in the critically ill patients.
Dr Tipu Sultan, a senior professor of anaesthesiology and chairman of Pakistan Society of Critical Care Medicine, said critical care medicine, which had great advancements in the last few decades, was still in its infancy in the SAARC countries.
He said it was a newly emerging feature in the patient management, unaffordable to large section of the population, and as such efforts should be made for sharing of problems and their solutions in order to ensure a more conducive environment for undertaking critical care management in public sector.
Among other speakers of the day were Ross C. Freebain of Australia, Jayshree Sood of India, Nasim Salahuddin, Sarwar J. Siddiqui.
Huma Qureshi of Pakistan Medical and Research Council talked on Hepatitis B and C and maintained that the diseases were on rise in the country. She said in absence of any vaccine for the HCV there was need to go for an optimum preventive strategy. Improper sterilization of invasive medical devices and unchecked injection practices were among the reasons for the high infectivity rate of HB and HC viruses, she added.
Earlier at the inauguration ceremony of the congress, Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro said critical care concepts should be clearly promoted for the benefit of ailing human beings. Instead of working in isolation, it was necessary for health organisations and experts to work in collaboration for the common and larger interests of people, particularly in the context of globalisation, he noted.Anaesthesiology, Surgical Intensive Care and Pain Management Department Chairperson Prof Saeeda Haider said the critical care or intensive care was a hi-teach facility for which a patient had to pay Rs30,000 to Rs40,000 per day in the country. There was need to make the process affordable to the masses as end stage diseases or complicated disease was rampant in South Asia, she added.
