According to the rationale of the WOŚP Foundation:
“For many years, the amount of injuries have caused permanent disability and, even death, for newborn babies to 18-year-old children. For children within that age range, there have been 1,500 deaths annually, and an even greater number of hospitalizations. These injuries continuously affect these children in adverse ways that do not always improve, as they get older, despite many efforts aiming to increase effective injury prevention and kid safety. An important step in Poland’s social development is evaluating Poland’s current injury treatment infrastructure for injured children in order to find an organized solution for proper care for them.
The lack of effective organization and resources has hurt emergency care for children while adults have received more efficient care. The infrastructure of emergency medicine for adults have an established network that start with the specialized injury center and after the hospital wards. However, the organizational system of emergency medicine for children is mainly based on pediatric surgery ward evaluations. The often ill-equipped pediatric wards lack resources for serious and life-threatening injury treatment, but the pediatric wards shouldn’t be treating the children. After the pediatrics diagnoses the injury of the child, he or she should go to a defined and developed injury center like the one their parents go when they are injured.
Currently, seriously injured children with the threatening injuries are often referred immediately to the nearest hospitals. Instead, children should be immediately referred to and fully evaluated by a specialized injury center that has an adequate multidisciplinary personnel as well as adequate equipment in order to rapidly diagnose, monitor and treat injuries so the hospitals can focus on emergencies.
These pediatric wards are being forced to do too much with a lack of resources. Several main hospital pediatric emergency wards in Poland are being closed due to the lack of adequate equipment that is required by provisions in the law. Many hospitals are not adequately equipped with the proper means of transport so that kids can be quickly transferred in a safe way, after the initial treatment, to a specialized center acting as injury center for children.
Essential actions in order to improve existing the current healthcare situation aim to:
1. Retrofit of hospital emergency wards with adequate equipment and medical apparatuses for children in order to serve as complex, rapid diagnosis while allowing hospitals to take the most effective actions in order to improve child health and save the lives of children after injuries.
2. Supply children’s hospitals with adequate ambulances for inter-hospital child transfer.
3. Financially support the medical and apparatus equipment so that these centers can act as regional injury centers (for instance, burn injury centers and other specialized injury areas), so that their multidisciplinary teams (pediatric surgeon, anesthesiologist, neurosurgeon, radiologist and other specialists) can optimally manage injured children.
4. Lead to real alterations within the healthcare of emergency medicine for kids.
The foundation is going to devote a portion of money that will be collected during 22nd WOŚP Final in order to retrofit the already established geriatric wards. There is a societal interest and need to update the current geriatric wards, and hopefully make new ones, with the help and guidance from leaders within the medical community about their environment.”
From the very beginning, Link to Poland has supported the Great Finale -organized by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity foundation. We are glad to inform you that this year we have officially joined the media supporting WOŚP.
We are going to continue publishing, on our portal, the list of all WOŚP departments in the world. Our publications will be similar to our work this past year, and we hope make it easier to communicate with them so people can take part in the 22nd Great Finale. We have also joined an auction that is organized by WOŚP via Allegro. We are handing in five photos taken by our photographer Francesco Carovillano that are special and part of a limited edition. They are printed on the highest quality photographic paper that guarantees the gallery-like durability and quality. These unique photos will be framed in passepartout and provided with a certificate. The winners of the auction can directly deposit their money to their WOŚP Foundation account.
Below you can find direct links to our photos:
We invite you to join the Final and the bidding at Allegro!