Gauhar UKHAYEVA:

Children's health is our concern

The first children's hospital in Shymkent is only 15 years old. However, these are the years of intense and interesting work, experience of bitter defeats and joyful victories for sake of children’s prosperity. Everlasting desire to develop and improve diagnostic and treatment methods contributed the establishment of this clinic. Annually, an average of 35,000 children come to the hospital, more than 14,000 children and adolescents are hospitalized, including to a day hospital. The first city children's hospital is a multidisciplinary hospital, it is seriously engaged in the improvement of various  aspects of pediatrics.

We asked Gauhar Sapatayevna Ukhayeva the chief doctor of the hospital to tell us about the hospital's activities and goals with a view of improving the health of children.

Our hospital has the departments of pediatric cardiology, neonatology, pediatric surgery with neonatal surgery beds, traumatology and orthopedics department, pulmonology department with nephrological and allergic beds. Rehabilitation treatment after cardio-surgery in children with congenital heart defects and cerebral palsy, traumatology and orthopedic surgeries is being successfully developed. The Health Department has been equipping the hospital with the most modern medical equipment while high professionalism of the staff makes it possible to provide qualified medical assistance quickly and efficiently daily and round the clock. There is an emergency and planned hospitalization to the clinic.

One of the key to successful treatment is the attitude towards patients. This is especially important for a children's hospital; after all, we deal with children, often with seriously ill people. And here it is important not just to conduct certain medical activities, but also to sympathize with a kid patient and to love him. There are no outsider children, and everyone in our hospital from the professor of the department to the nurse work and ask themselves: “What would I do if it were my child?”. We are doing everything that would give our children the main thing – the health.

What are the target programs faced by the clinic to improve the health of children?

After implementation of Salamatty Kazakhstan State Program for Reforming the Health System, 2010 -2015 and now owing to Densauly State Program for 2016-2020, there is a possible stable trend to improve the health of the population integrally in the country and in our region in particular. The implementation of a number of targeted programs in relation to the children's population led to the introduction of effective technologies that contributed to the prevention and early detection of diseases and improvement of the quality of medical care for children of all age groups. Systemic measures that have been adopted in the field of Maternal and Child Health have significantly reduced the maternal and infant mortality rates in the region. At the end of 2017, it was 14.4 and 9.1 per 1000 live births, respectively, maternal mortality decreased by 34% while infant mortality decreased by 3.4% as compared to last year. But these indicators are still higher than the republican ones, and we have something to work on.

Please tell us about your children's hospital and about your employees.

The city children's hospital is located in a new building and is equipped according to the State program “100 schools, 100 hospitals”. The equipment rate is 92%. It is planned to place floor by floor structural units of the operating division, which includes the operation department with 4 operating rooms, diagnostic department with expert class diagnostic equipment (CT, digital X-ray apparatus, ultrasound devices, C-arm). The Surgery Unit and Intensive Care Unit are equipped with a range of clean rooms, due to several stages of filtration of the supplied air and certain types of filters create laminar zones. Owing to this procedure, microorganisms emanating from patients or medical personnel are immediately removed from the room with a stream of air. The waiting room is equipped with a trauma center and small operating room for emergency trauma patients.

At present, the hospital is a multidisciplinary children's facility, where qualified medical care for children is provided. Here there are certified specialists like neurologists, neonatologists, gastroenterologists, pulmonologists, cardiologists, nephrologists, allergists, surgeons, traumatologists, rehabilitation specialists and pediatricians. The following diagnostic services are provided: X-ray (Radiography, Fluoroscopy and Contrast Radiography), functional (REG, EEG, ECG, holter according to AP and ECG, EMG), ultrasound (ultrasound of abdominal, surface organs, neurosonography, EchoCG with Colour Doppler Imaging), endoscopic esophagogastroduodenoscopy, EFGS, EFS for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, bronchoscopy), laboratory (general clinical, biochemical and bacterial studies).

The equipment of the new hospital allowed the expansion of emergency traumatological and surgical assistance to the children's population, a trauma center with a traumatology and orthopedics department for children of the city was opened on the base of the hospital; neonatal surgery is successfully developing, all newborn parts of the body with diaphragm pathology are operated in our hospital. The peculiarity is that the operations for newborns are done endoscopically, which significantly increases the survival rate of children. In all 84% of cases, surgical interventions are performed endoscopically. Since last year, the hospital provides for other ultrasonic services on traumatology-oriopedy. The operation is done as per Donald Nassa's technique which is minimally invasive: thorax is corrected with a use of thoracoscopic and special intrathoracic implants from 2 sections of 2 cm each. Minimally invasive operations and manipulations and osteosynthesis with elastic rods are widely used. We began to operate children with flat-valgus feet. Pursuant to the order of the health department, for the first time in the history our hospital created a department of palliative and nursing care.

How do you assess your personal contribution to the development of your hospital?

I'm a pediatrician by profession. I have been working in healthcare for more than 15 years. Today I can dare to say that I have students who have come to me from college and today they are already qualified specialists. For more than 8 years I have been heading the children's hospital. Thanks to the implementation of the state programs and support of the health department, today it is a multidisciplinary children's hospital that serves the city with almost a million inhabitants. At the end of the year 2017 our hospital was recognized as the “Best City Multidisciplinary Hospital”. The hospital passed the National Accreditation and received 1st qualification category. Of course, above all, it is the work of the whole team, the healthcare administration of the region, which clearly coordinates the work of the hospital.