Latest innovations and technology in critical care are being featured at the ninth Emirates Critical Care Conference (ECCC) that opened today in Dubai Festival City with participation from more than 30 countries.

The three-day conference at InterContinental Hotel was inaugurated by Essa Al Maidoor, director general of the Dubai Health Authority. The summit is being held in conjunction with the fifth Asia Africa Conference of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive Care and Critical Care Medicine (WFSICCM), ninth International Pan Arab Critical Care Medicine Society (IPACCMS) and the first Middle East Surviving Sepsis Campaign Meeting.

“The conference is of great significance, as it coincides with the launch of the first edition of the first Middle East Surviving Sepsis Campaign Meeting. The statistics issued by the World Health Organization indicate that sepsis has become the leading causes of death worldwide. Every year, an estimated 20-30 million patients are afflicted, with over 6 million cases of neonatal and early childhood sepsis, with one person dying every minute because of this disease,” Al Maidoor said.

“Hence, this scientific forum gains utmost importance for the review of the latest research and global developments in the field of sepsis prevention. The conference is a platform to discuss the latest ways to improve services provided to critically ill patients.

“The DHA has always paid great emphasis to this field because we realize the importance of management of such cases and thus the DHA has built various Intensive Care Units (ICU’s) across its hospitals, where we have trained personnel, state-of-the-art medical equipment and this has helped us reduce our mortality rates in ICUs from 60 per cent to 35 per cent, which is less than the international bench mark of 40 to 50 per cent,” he added.

Al Maidoor said that while this is a significant achievement, the aim to further strengthen care of ICU patients and develop strategies for dealing with emerging issues in the field of critical care.

Dr Hussain Nasser Al Rahma, the president of the ninth Conference of Emirates Intensive Care Society, president of the International Pan Arab Critical Care Medicine Society, chairman of the Emirates Intensive Care Society and head of ICU, Dubai Hospital, said: “Critical care is a fast advancing specialty and is dependent on highly skilled professionals, latest technology and integration of services to achieve the best patient outcomes and to lower mortality rates.

“Dubai is currently the benchmark in this region and one of the leaders in critical care, we have the latest equipment and skilled medical staff and we strongly focus on training students and faculty in this field.”

He highlighted that Dubai Hospital is equipped with the latest non-invasive medical equipment that helps gauge the complete status of patients and immediately identifies what is wrong with the patient. “Such sophisticated equipment and highly skilled staff have helped us provide internationally recognized levels of care to patients and has reduced the risk of mortality in our ICU’s.”

Moreover DHA is training medical and nursing students from Europe Australia and East Asian Pacific region in the field of critical care who train at the hospital to gain practical experience.

He added that the critical care unit at the DHA is a leading unit which is training doctors from different hospitals in the UAE on the use of the new technologies in critical care.

“This year, the conference will discuss sepsis prevention and management in great detail because sepsis causes more deaths globally than cardiovascular diseases, cancer, etc.,” Dr Al Rahma said.

“Surviving Sepsis Campaign Meeting is advocating that globally we recognize the high mortality rates caused by this disease so that all measures can be taken at various levels to prevent patients from developing this disease.”

He added that raising awareness amongst all healthcare providers and then the public about sepsis is much needed given the significantly high number of deaths caused globally due to this disease.

Dr Al Rahma mentioned that the conference will present several research papers, will hold 180 lectures and 12 workshops with the participation of 62 key speakers.

He also mentioned that in conjunction with WFSICCM, the conference will discuss new developments and research papers from all over the world which were conducted during the past six months in that field of critical care.  He added that more than 30 presidents from various critical societies the world over, are taking part in this congress and that the conference will present nine awards this year.

The conference is organised by the Emirates Intensive Care Society (EICS) and the International Pan Arab Critical Care Medicine Society (EICS) and is supported by the Dubai Health Authority and Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences. – TradeArabia News Service