The articles, launched at yesterday's GEC Conference launch in Darwin with the Pacific Community (SPC), were written by the College's Global Emergency Care Committee (GECCo), in partnership with emergency care colleagues and leaders across the Pacific Region. They were put together after multiple phases of consultation, discussion and interviews with stakeholders in Pacific emergency care.
Featuring in the August 2022 edition of The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, the six articles address a multitude of factors, including human resources, infrastructure and equipment, emergency care processes, leadership and governance, and finally, lessons about resilience in emergency care.
A major public presentation of outcomes from a long term research project that was the recipient of funding from the World Health Organisation, the works offer a significant opportunity for emergency care providers, governments and policy makers across the Pacific to take stock of the lessons learnt during a challenging period for healthcare workers across the world.
From Left: Dr Rob Mitchell, Dr Georgina Phillips, Associate Professor Gerard O'Reilly, Sarah Korver, Dr Megan Cox.
Drawing from expertise across the Indo-Pacific, the study engaged with physicians from more than 20 countries, including Papua New Guinea (PNG), Timor-Leste, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Myanmar.
Principle Investigator and ACEM GEC Committee Chair, Dr Megan Cox, said that launching the articles in Darwin with SPC, a major participant in the research, was a great way to recognise the work that had gone into the project and its multiple phases.
"Today's launch is a significant occasion, and it recognizes the efforts of all who played a part in bringing this research, and now the journal articles, into being."
"I would like to thank all my fellow colleagues across the Pacific who contributed to the project, especially our co-authors in Fiji, PNG and Tonga who were unable to join us in person today, as well as all the emergency care providers who participated in the forums and interviews that formed the basis of this study."
"The COVID-19 pandemic forced emergency care providers to go to often unfathomable lengths to provide exceptional care for their patients, and I am hopeful our work can form a significant and ongoing contribution to understanding how that process played out, and is still occurring, across the Pacific region."
The August 2022 edition of The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific is available to read in full online, and more information about GECCo's work can be found here.
