FRIENDS OF PEDIATICS TO HOST SYMPOSIUM

October 04, 2006

Friends of Pediatrics along with other partners will be hosting the First Belize Developmental Pediatrics Conference and Clinics next month. Love News spoke with President of friends of Pediatrics Doctor Egbert Grinage.

Doctor Egbert Grinage:

“Every year Friends of Pediatrics has a workshop or a symposium on some topic related to child health and this year we are having a symposium on what we call Developmental Pediatrics. The official name of this year’s symposium is “First Belize Developmental Pediatrics Conference and Clinics”. What it is, is a symposium that will be held at the Princess Hotel on the days of November fourth and fifth of this year to start from 7 am to 5pm on Saturday the fourth and then from 7:45 am to 4:40 pm on Sunday the fifth of November. There is no registration fee and lunch and refreshments will be served. Our symposium will consist of a combination lectures and workshops aimed at teaching the important aspects of certain developmental disorders that affect children such as Attention Deficit and Hyper Activity Disorder, Autism which is when children don’t speak and they don’t interact well with other children, Speech Language Disorders, Mental Retardation and Mental and Hearing and Visual Disorders. We are targeting parents. Public Health Nurses, Pediatricians, General Practitioners and Pre- School Teachers who are the first to come in contact with children who are not developing normally from a mental and cognetics and points. If this is not about motor meaning dealing with movements of the limbs, we are mainly dealing with children who are slow to speak, children who are not learning in school those are the kids who may have underline Hyper Activity Disorder a disorder known as Autism or any speech language disorder or  mental retardation etc. So what we aim to do at the end of this two day symposium is that we hope to equip the attendee whoever he or she is with the necessary skills to identify these children and to recommend intervention as early as possible because if you intervene early you may be able to mitigate the disorder or improve the child’s long term out come.” 

The workshop will be facilitated by a number of local and international specialists.

Doctor Egbert Grinage:

 “We have some Developmental Pediatrics Specialists from the USA from the North Carolina area; they are coming courtesy of the International Hospital for Children with whom we are associated. Some Research Scientists, Developmental Pediatrics Specialists from Jamaica one from Jamaica will be coming. Our Special Education Department will be playing a huge roll, me, Dr. Cecelio Eck and also the staff the CARE- BELIZE Institute such as Sister Hoffman, Rosanne Jones,  Evan Cowo so it’s an international and local panel of speakers on the topic of Developmental Pediatrics looking mainly at Special Education or learning disability in children why children are not learning if it is some sort of in born problem that they have or problems that they have that is making it harder for them to learn.” 

Doctor Grinage said they are still in the planning stages but interested individuals can get in touch with them for more information.

Doctor Egbert Grinage:

“They can of course get in touch with me I am always available at the Universal Health Services, Mrs. Melargro Garel from International Hospital for Children her number is 223 – 7300 or 223 – 7400, the people at CARE – BELIZE, Friends of Pediatrics members the people at Special Education I believe even the people at Stella Maris are referring children. The only problems is because of the complexity of these types of illnesses we have two clinics of the third of November the date before symposium and the sixth of November the date after the symposium and most of these children are going to take like forty five minutes to evaluate and to come up with a diagnosis because these disorders are sometimes complicated to diagnose. We are restricting the clinic now to referrals from either me, Dr. Cecelio Eck at the Integral Health Service, Special Education Unit, the Stella Maris or CARE – BELIZE to a total of just twenty – five overall because there is a time restriction and so this has caused to quota to be less. Usually when we have clinics we invite unlimited patients but this time we have to have a restriction so that they can do a good job diagnosing these children. We hope to have in the years that follow is a follow up clinic and if we can have a follow up clinic without symposium and then that will lead us top have it opened. But we are targeting the area that see these children the most part to Stella Maris, Special Education, Pediatrician, CARE – BELIZE and so on.”

Doctor Egbert Grinage president of friends of Pediatrics.

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