ANZCA Bulletin - March 2006 - Australian and New Zealand College ...

March 2006 Bulletin 47
Launch of Guidelines
Launch of the Guidelines for the Management of
Procedure-related Pain in Children by the
Paediatrics and Child Health Division of the Royal
Australasian College of Physicians
Monday, October 17, 2005
It was my pleasure to attend, on behalf of A/Prof
Cohen and the Faculty, the launch of the
Guidelines for the Management of Procedurerelated
Pain in Children on Monday, October 17,
2005 at the RACP Offices, Macquarie St, Sydney.
This was a most appropriate day for the launch as
it was the IASP's Global Day Against Pain and the
theme for 2005 was Pain in Children. In fact, it
marked the start of a year dedicated to
highlighting the issues of pain and its
management in children.
The publication of Australasian Guidelines
recognizes the importance of addressing pain
management in children at a local level. The
guidelines aim to raise awareness that treatment
of pain in children is a very high priority, bridge
gaps between research and clinical practice,
provide recommendations relevant to clinical
practice in Australia and New Zealand at both
individual and institutional levels and challenge
health care professionals who deal with children
to reflect on their attitudes, beliefs and practices.
The Guidelines are the product of an enormous
amount of work by a RACP Working Party chaired
by Dr Angela Mackenzie over a two year period.
They are divided into two documents, one
addressing procedure-related pain in children
and adolescents and the second addressing
procedure-related pain in neonates. Both are
comprehensive documents with evidence-based
recommendations for the vast majority of
common procedures performed in children and
neonates ranging from simple procedures such as
blood sampling to the more complex such as
radiological investigations, fracture manipulation
and burns dressings to name a few. Issues of the
resources required, the role of parents, preprocedure
preparation, communication and
behaviour problems are all addressed.
Pharmacological and bio-behavioural techniques
are described. However, the Guidelines are not
a recipe book. The recommendations provide
flexible options so that a pain management
technique can be chosen that is tailored to the
needs of the individual child. The Guidelines
end with an extensive reference list for those who
wish to explore individual pain management
techniques or other issues in greater detail.
The Guidelines can be found on the RACP
website in the public access section at
www.racp.edu.au/public/publications.htm under
Policy Documents, paediatric policy.
Alternatively, the guidelines will be published
next month as a supplement in the Australian
Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. I
recommend these Guidelines as essential
reading for all who treat children.
Meredith Craigie
Chair, Paediatric Pain Working Party
Pandemic Influenza
Australian Management Plan
The Department of Health and Ageing has recently published the Australian Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza,
in recognition of the threat posed by the H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in Asia as of June 2005.
“The plan centres on the core strategies of containment and maintenance of essential services until a vaccine can be
made available.”
This 149 page comprehensive public health document is available at: www.health.gov.au
Direct link:
www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/FC517607D6EE443ECA2570190019CDF7/$File/pandemic_plan.pdf