Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) Program
During the period of March 9th to March 14th, 2007, the Sri Narayani Hospital and Research Centre (SNHRC) in collaboration with the Schneider Children's Medical Centre.
Israel (SCMCI) conducted a 5 days Basic Life Support (BLS) and Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course, with the blessings of Sri Sakthi Amma.
The instructors of the 5 day course were Dr. Hezi Waisman, the Chief PALS instructor and Director of the Unit of Emergency Medicine at SCMCI also Director of PALS courses for Israel. The other senior instructors were Dr. Elhanan Nachum, Deputy Director, Intensive care unit SCMCI, Mrs. Tzipora Shvalb R.N. and Head Nurse Unit of Emergency Medicine SCMCI and Mrs. Lilach Markoviz R.N. of the Intensive care unit, SCMCI.
Thirty two participants comprising of doctors, nurses and nursing tutors attended the course. This project was the brain child of Mrs. Lynn Schneider, an American philanthropist and patron of SCMCI of Israel, New York, USA. On March 9th, there was an inauguration function attended by Mr. N. Balaji, Director, SNHRC, Dr. Parimalabai Chinnappan, Head of the Department of Paeditrics and Neonatalogy, Dr. Varadhan, Medical Superintendent, Dr. Surendra Babu, General Superintendent and other members of staff.
Dr. Hezi Waisman explained that the purpose of the course was to train health care professionals in the resuscitation and stabilization of critically ill children both in the hospital and outside of a hospital.
He also explained that it is a basic life support measure which includes effective chest compressions and rescue breathing (cardio pulmonary resuscitation) which has been proven to be an intervention that definitely improves survival and outcome of critically ill children. As an extension of BLS the PALS has a targeted approach based on a rapid comprehensive assessment and focused intervention both in the hospital and out of a hospital scenario. The PALS approach gives special emphasis on knowledge acquisition, skill training and team based interventions.
It is important that emergency medical services be developed in every community and locality which will be responsible for a broad spectrum of services including prevention, early recognition of problems, initial stabilization and rehabilitation care. It is also ideal that all hospitals, business and building complexes establish an emergency medical response system on site. With this in mind, there is a plan to upgrade SNHRC as a training centre for future PALS courses.
