The Department of Pediatrics of JIPMER

1. Inpatient services

The Department of Pediatrics located in the JIPMER Women & Children Hospital (JWCH) has a total bed strength of 160 which includes the general wards, private wards, emergency and and the pediatric intensive care unit.

• Emergency

The A& E located on the ground floor is a 24 bedded unit which provides round the clock emergency services. Sick patients who come to the OPD in the morning, those who arrive after OPD hours and on holidays are seen here. The A&E consists of a Triage room, Zero delay ward, the A&E ward and the High Dependency Unit (HDU) level I for patients who require close monitoring and yet are not sick enough to be transferred to the intensive care unit.

The A&E team comprises of one senior resident, four to five junior residents, interns, nursing staff and an on-call consultant. The emergency is fully equipped to handle all kinds of emergencies. There are facilities for oxygen therapy, radiant warmers for newborn temperature maintenance, multiparameter monitors, pediatric ventilators and facilities for conducting minor procedures. The residents are well versed in handling all pediatric emergency situations, as they deal with a wide range of conditions everyday like shock, respiratory distress, diabetic ketoacidosis, congestive cardiac failure, poisonings etc. Investigations like blood investigations, bedside X rays, ECG, ultrasonography etc are available 24 hours.

• Pediatric Wards

On the first and the third floors of the Women and Children Hospital there are pediatric wards. Duty residents and nursing staff are posted 24 hours in these wards. There are separate procedure rooms for conducting procedures like i.v. cannulation, lumbar puncture etc. Multiparameter monitors are available bedside. A side lab is attached for basic investigations. Facilities for bedside ECG and X-ray are available round the clock.

• Pediatric endoscopy room

The GI endoscopy room is located adjacent to the ward. Endoscopy services are available for in-patients but is predominantly conducted as day care procedure under sedation to ensure patient comfort and early return to daily activities. Diagnostic endoscopies are done for biopsies and corrosive ingestions. Therapeutic procedures like variceal ligation, sclerotherapy, stricture dilatation, foreign body removal, polypectomy and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy are performed.

• Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is located in the first floor of WCH with an adjacent progressive care ward. PICU is a 19 bedded level-III facility with state of the art full-fledged multimodal monitoring including ECHO, EEG and ICP monitoring, mechanical ventilation, (invasive and non-invasive), HFOV, renal supportive therapy (CRRT, PD, HD) and bronchoscopy (flexible) facilities. In addition PICU has 2 isolation beds to cater for critically ill children who require complete isolation.

Out-Patient Services

• Daily OPD Services

The Pediatric OPD located on the ground floor of the Women and Children Hospital functions six days a week from 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM.

• Immunisation clinic (Well baby clinic)

The immunisation clinic runs every Wednesday afternoon from 2 pm to 4 pm in the first floor of Women and Children Hospital. Monitoring of growth and development is an integral part during the visit to this clinic.

• Child Guidance OPD

Parallel to the general OPD runs the Child guidance OPD, six days a week. Patients attending the OPD are seen by the resident and given appointment for detailed assessment in the Child Guidance Forum.

• Side Lab Facility

The OPD has a side lab for rapid reporting of basic investigations like hemogram, urine routine etc.

• Procedure Room

The OPD has a procedure room for taking blood samples for investigations .

Paediatric OPD Schedule

Paediatric special clinic schedule*

* Immunisation clinic functions on all Wednesdays from 2 pm to 4pm under the supervision of Dr Gunasekaran D and Dr Ramesh Kumar R