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Child Health

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Effectiveness. Transparency. Caring

Children at The Royal Hospital get the best, most extensive and high-quality medical service, delivered by a comprehensive team of extremely specialized consultants and health care professionals. No matter what medical need your child has, the pediatric unit will provide the best medical care.

The pediatric teams are staffed with the best professionals providing main and subspecialty services including acute medical care dedicated for emergency pediatric conditions, allergy and clinical immunology dealing with extensive complex allergic disorders, and inborn errors of immunity, developmental pediatric, gastroenterology, clinical and biochemical genetics, nephrology, neurology, pulmonology, and rheumatology.

Scope of Services

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Adolescent medicine
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Allergy and clinical Immunology

Acute paediatrics

This unit accommodate admissions with acute medical conditions from the paediatric emergency department and from accepted transfers from other hospitals. General paediatric teams also collaborate with other subspecialties and health services to deliver optimal care. There are 3 general medical teams that provide inpatient services for children with a range of health issues and medical conditions.

The unit has a large capacity for admissions making the unit one of the busiest in the department. Recently, a complex care program has been established to coordinate utilizing multiple services and specialities to help oversee health care needs for selected children with complex medical conditions.

Adolescent medicine

Adolescence is the stage of life that marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. This pediatric subspecialty is unique in providing the healthcare services to adolescents from the age of 10 years to 19 years of age as well to young adults till the age of 24 years. We are honoured to be the only unit-providing healthcare services for teens in the country.

The unit mission is to provide the best comprehensive, compassionate, and confidential care to adolescents to ensure a smooth and healthy transition for the future generation. Examples of the services provided include eating disorders, behavioural health, substance abuse, academic pressure, screening for risky behaviours, problematic internet, and others.

Allergy and clinical Immunology

This unit deliver an extensive, consultative and a state-of-the-art tertiary care for children with complex allergic disorders and inborn errors of immunity. The most frequent consultations are for food allergy, allergic asthma/rhinoconjunctivities, medication allergy, recurrent infections, primary immunodeficiency, immune dysregulation, and others.

Various investigational and management strategies can be applied including special tests for allergy, a routine and detailed immune workup, antimicrobial prophylaxis, antibody replacement therapy, targeted immunotherapy, initiation of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation and others.

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Developmental paediatrics
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Emergency
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Gastroenterology

Developmental paediatrics

The main clinical focus of this unit it to deal with childhood neuro-developmental and neuro-rehabilitation disorders. Specialized assessment clinics provide diagnostic assessments for children with autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, developmental disabilities, developmental impairment, neuromuscular disorders, and others.

Children with such needs will advance their development in a multifaceted way. This includes the recovery in delays in their language, social, emotional, learning and motor development, and resolution of their complex developmental difficulties. Teamwork is fundamental with the help of specialist, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy, nurses, and social workers.

Emergency

Pediatric emergency unit provide a 24-hour emergency care and a direct access to pediatric subspecialties and diagnostic tools. It is the only dedicated and fully equipped facility to serve children in the country. It contains a triage area, resuscitation area, isolation rooms, cubicles for primary assessment and observation beds for initiation of treatment and close follow up.

The treating team include dedicated and proficient nurses, board certified consultants and experienced registrars. The aim is to provide outstanding care for ill or injured children and advocate for children’s emergent and urgent clinical care needs.

Gastroenterology

This is a highly specialised and a central unit to many childhood medical conditions. It provides expert services in pediatric gastrointestinal disorders, hepatic disorders, and nutrition. Services include diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy, PH and gut motility studies and others.

Amongst the special care delivered is assessing patients requiring liver transplant as well as providing post liver transplant care in collaboration with colleagues in liver transplant service.

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Clinical and biochemical genetics
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Infectious Diseases
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Intensive Care and High Dependency

Clinical and biochemical genetics

This is a highly specialized unit that provides medical care for general genetics, an inborn error of metabolic disorders, and genetic counselling. A team of physicians and experts in collaboration with the national genetic center deliver inpatient and outpatient care to children with a wide range of genetic conditions including chromosomal, single gene, and multifactorial disorders.

Children evaluated with dysmorphic and non-dysmorphic syndromes, multiple congenital anomalies, prenatal exposure to environment factors, single-gene defect with non-metabolic effect and inborn error of metabolism. At the same time providing preventive methods like high-risk screening, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and help in the arrangement of prenatal testing.

Infectious Diseases

The unit of infectious diseases is dedicated to the promotion of excellence in patient care, disease prevention and control in the field of pediatric infectious diseases. Inpatient and outpatient consultations provide expert diagnosis and management of infectious disease-related clinical issues.

Paediatricians specializing in infectious diseases see patients with conditions ranging from common infections, fever of unknown origin, infections with multi-drug resistance, post-operative complicated infections to more serious diseases like infections in the immunocompromised host (transplant recipient, malignancy, acquired immunodeficiency like HIV/AIDS and congenital immunodeficiency).

Intensive Care and High Dependency

The pediatric intensive care unit provides continuous monitoring and/or intervention, specialized high quality, safe, and efficient intensive care to children admitted in the unit. The unit is the largest in the country and is extensively equipped to offer medical, surgical, and post cardiac surgical intensive care. It is the tertiary subspecialty intensive care unit for the Ministry of Health. The unit admits all variety of medical and cardiac patients and it is the national center for congenital heart surgeries with ECMO facility.

It also provides consultations to other subspecialties/services for children outside of the intensive care who are clinically unstable and could require critical care. This is achieved through direct review by the intensivists and the rapid response team. The unit is run by certified pediatric intensivists and well-trained PICU nurses in addition to other supporting services. Children admitted are often with critical illness, require intensive monitoring, undergo invasive and non-invasive mechanical ventilation and other modalities of treatment like high frequency ventilation, continues renal replacement therapy, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and others. Children are managed in a safe, effective, and humane manner, utilizing finite resources in a fashion designed to provide a high-quality of care and optimal outcome.

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Nephrology
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Neonatology
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Neurology

Nephrology

Pediatric nephrology department is the main tertiary referral unit for children with congenital and acquired kidney diseases in Oman. Inpatient and outpatient consultations provides medical care for children with a variety of kidney diseases. Services provided embrace peritoneal dialysis, haemodialysis, arrangements for renal biopsy, post renal transplant care and others. Therefore, the unit carries a comprehensive service in collaboration with pediatric urology, pediatric surgery, and renal transplant team.

Neonatology

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) provides specialized care 24 hours a day to premature or term newborn. It is a warm and friendly environment a joy to work in and family oriented. Comprises of dedicated neonatologist who cater not only to Muscat Governate but also across the Sultanate. The NICU, a 40-beds for inborn and referral center for critically ill infants requiring complex medical, cardiac and surgical care. Highly specialized physicians, nurses and support staff collaborate in the care of critically ill neonate and their families.

A team from multiple specialties within the hospital provides advanced therapies and family-centerd care. The Services provided by NICU include but not limited to Prematurity care as early as 23 weeks of gestation , Fully equipped Neonatal Neurocritical care unit ; including therapeutic hypothermia, Providing support to critically ill neonates with high end medical equipment and top of range ventilators and monitors, Pre- and post-surgical support to complex surgical conditions, Supporting neonates with congenital cardiac disease in liaison with cardiologist pre- diagnostic/ therapeutic cardiac catheterization, Functional ECHO and hemodynamic program to support management of sick neonate , Nutrition and breastfeeding optimisation and Neonatal Lung Ultrasound.

Neurology

The unit of pediatric neurology offers comprehensive care for children affected with acute and chronic neurological diseases. The Neurology teams ensures to provide optimal and evidence-based treatment, with the support of specialty-trained doctors, nurses, technicians, and rehabilitation therapist. The unit receives referrals from all over Oman and from other subspecialties in pediatrics. Conditions that are treated include complex epilepsy syndromes, chronic headache, neuromuscular conditions, movement disorders, neuro-cutaneous syndromes, complex neuro-genetic and neurodegenerative diseases, cerebral palsy, pediatric stroke and many others.

Multidisciplinary approach and comfort care is advocated by the unit for children afflicted with complex neurological illness by liaising with other pediatric subspecialty teams. The unit is well equipped with diagnostic services like neuroradiology, Electrophysiology lab for Electroencephalography, nerve conduction study and Electromyography.

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Pulmonology
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Rheumatology

Pulmonology

This unit serves as the main tertiary care referral centre for children with respiratory diseases. It provides a specialized care for children with severe asthma, cystic fibrosis, primary ciliary dyskinesia, interstitial lung disease and others. The unit liaise with other paediatric sub-specialties to provide a multi-disciplinary care.

The team members are competent in performing flexible bronchoscopy for children across all ages. A pulmonary function lab is shared with adult pulmonology. In addition, the unit has expertise in paediatric sleep medicine and takes care of children on home invasive and non-invasive ventilation. A level one sleep lab is under construction and will start accepting patients over the next few months. The team members are active in research and published several studies in the field of paediatric pulmonology and sleep medicine.

Rheumatology

This unit evaluates children with complex connective tissue and rheumatologic diseases and provides consultations to other subspecialties on children with difficult and complex inflammatory conditions. Highly specialised experts use a coordinated multidisciplinary approach for optimal management of the complex musculoskeletal and extra-articular manifestations of the disease, and complications of therapy. The day-care consultations ensure initiation and continuation of targeted therapies like infusions of biologics.

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