The department runs General Paediatric and Speciality OPDS (link to OPD Chart). More than 15,000 children visit the OPD in a year.

The department runs a 40 bedded Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which is accredited by the National Neonatology Forum. Services provided are divided into three levels:

Level II care: - Nurses look after Babies with the mother's support. Tasks like tube feeding, warmth, I.V. therapy, sepsis management, etc. come under Level II care.

Level III care: - Only about 1% critically ill babies who need support for survival need this care. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit has trained staff monitoring sophisticated equipment like warmers, incubators, pumps, and ventilators, and extensive back up facilities like blood gas, micro lab assays, ultrasound machines and advanced microbiological testing. With the help of grants by USAID \ FUNEN, NICU has shifted to its present magnificent premises built by the management of the KEM Hospital. The bed strength has gone to 40 with 9 high dependency beds. NICU caters to more than 1500 neonates per year and complements the high-risk prenatal services of the hospital.

The NICU at the KEM Hospital has been a successful model for providing the best of medical services at affordable costs to patients. With the supportive, philanthropic view of the hospital management, generous donors and a dedicated NICU Team, the KEM Hospital is rendering commendable service in its mission to provide an ICU facility for the tiny neonates who come for it.

NICU graduates and other newborns are followed in the high risk and well baby clinics as well as in the Developmental Paediatrics clinic.

A hearing screening programme for all newborn or admitted neonates in this hospital is carried out. This ensures early diagnosis and intervention in hearing impaired children.

The neonatal transport ambulance service is available round the clock to get babies to NICU in as fast as possible. This service is offered to hospitals in and around Pune. The ambulances are well equipped with necessary equipment and a resident doctor accompanies the ambulance. Thus, high-risk babies receive high quality medical care right at the point of birth.

The unit has a team of trained nurses and qualified Resident Pediatricians who attend to the immediate needs of the sick children. It is headed by a highly trained intensivist.

Before the year 2000, the Dept of Pediatrics referred critically ill children in the General Wards/ Private Rooms to the adult ICU for ventilation or dialysis. The PICU was set up in April 2000, with generous help from the Mukul Madhav Foundation and the Rotary Club, as an annexe of the

Pediatric General Ward with 6 beds, dedicated staff and equipment for monitoring and resuscitation. Today the PICU has been expanded to 10 beds and is equipped for minute to minute monitoring of vital parameters including intra-arterial blood presure monitoring.

Each child is admitted under the supervision of an Intensive Care Pediatrician and a Consultant Pediatrician. Sub-specialists are involved in the care, as and when required.

The PICU receives referrals from pediatricians within Pune and a 300 km radius around Pune including Jalna, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Satara, Kolhapur, Solapur, Baramati, Nasik, Dhulia, Lonavala.

The case load of PICU inpatients, 50-60 per month, has a variegated profile. The more frequent admissions are for traumatic and non-traumatic coma, respiratory failures from pneumonias, asthma, congenital heart diseases, myocarditis, septic shock, diabetic ketoacidosis, liver diseases, renal failure, foreign body aspiration, accidental poisoning and animal bites. Children undergoing major pediatric surgery are monitored in the PICU peri-operatively.

The department has a 33 bed Children's Ward, which has been refurbished in a child friendly environment having brightly painted walls with colourful charts and posters adorning the walls. The ward is equipped with toys and games to keep the child patient entertained. There is a facility for 10 beds in the Nursing Home for families who prefer to keep their child in a private room.

The unit gets about 2,000 admissions in a year. All the consultants manage these babies as per their admission days. Paediatric services are kept at an affordable level.

This centre, of worldwide repute, has specialized diagnostic and therapeutic services for all types of liver disease in children such as Wilson's disease and Neonatal Cholestasis syndrome. A Metabolic laboratory has been set up in collaboration with the Children's Hospital in Sheffield UK. This Unit is equipped with up to date facilities such as video endoscopy, gastroscopy, and colonoscopy for children and, most importantly, for Neonates. Some of the therapies available in this facility are sclerotherapy, band ligation and oesophageal dilation. A new pH-monitoring meter for GE Reflux has recently been commissioned.

This is for children with epilepsy and convulsion disorders. EEG and Video EEG are available.

Children with various cardiac disorders are managed here. The following services are available:
2 D Echo and Colour Doppler.

KEM Hospital has committed itself to the care of challenged children in 1979, with the inception of the TDH Rehabilitation Centre. Over the years, the Centre has grown into a multidisciplinary unit providing diagnostic and therapeutic services to mentally and physically challenged children under one roof. While investigating the causes of disabilities, it was soon realized that a large number of these arise from problems in the prenatal period. The focus in the High Risk Clinic is early prediction of outcome and selection of infants who would benefit from early interventions. Early detection and treatment of infections is very important in reducing the alarmingly high post neo natal mortality, especially in very low birth weight babies.

Early intervention means identifying a baby who already has a handicapping condition or is at a potential risk for developing one, thus providing services to lessen the effects of that condition. This term encompasses a range of stimulation and training activities over and above the minimal care traditionally provided for all babies.

Follow up management of high-risk babies is as important, as critical care in an NICU, and there is an emphasis on linking the NICU, High Risk Clinic and the Rehabilitation Centre. Such linkages improve the quality of life beyond neonatal survival.

In 2007, through the generosity of Dr. Anjali Morris and Dr. Don Morris, the entire TDH Centre has been redesigned and re-equipped into a child friendly integrated unit. The Morris Child Development Centre encompasses activities such as Developmental Assessment, IQ, DQ & Emotional Assessment, Management of Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Attention Deficit Disorders, Learning Disabilities, Developmental & Behavioural Counselling.

This department is recognized as a teaching unit of the B.J Medical College, Pune, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Mumbai and Diplomate of the National Board of Examinations, New Delhi. Students of DM Neonatology from Chandigarh and Mumbai are posted in this hospital for their field of specialized training. Doctors, Nurses, and Therapists not only receive their training in KEM Hospital, but there are Exchange Training programs carried out at prestigious Institutes in India and abroad.

The Department of Paediatrics has to its credit many pioneering research studies acclaimed the world over. Research carried out in Indian Childhood Cirrhosis led to the eradication of the fatal liver disorder prevalent amongst children. Currently research is being carried out in long-term development of high-risk neonates and early origins of adult disease.

Consultants in the department have published several research papers in national and international journals and have authored chapters in textbooks. They have read research papers and have been invited as faculty at various national and international conferences.

Pediatric OPD/ Speciality OPD:
Sister-in Charge: 020-66037402

Till recently, Pune lacked a centre and a programme especially for the hearing impaired child. KEM is the only hospital in Maharashtra which offers all the services needed for the hearing impaired; from a variety of tests to detect hearing loss to hearing aids, speech therapy, counselling and cochlear implants. All this under one roof at 'Big Ears'.

The first project of its kind in the country focuses on early detection and diagnosis of hearing.

All the babies born at KEM Hospital are screened for deafness before discharge from the hospital; special attention being paid to children in the Neonatal ICU as they are at risk to develop deafness.

The screening test used is Oto Acoustic Emission (OAE Test) hearing screening is mandatory. The screening programme is supervised by an audiologist, ENT surgeon and a Paediatrician.

There is an entire support system to ensure that all the therapies, facilities and aids needed by a child who has impaired hearing are available under one roof.

Children who test positive for hearing loss have to undergo a BERA test at the age of three moths and if this test confirms a hearing loss, a hearing aid is fitted, even as early as three months of age. The child then needs to undergo therapy, so that he/she can learn to listen and talk. A team consisting of a Teacher for the Deaf and a Speech and Language Pathologist ensure that every hearing aid is used in the best possible way. Parents too are involved in the training sessions.

For those children who do not get any benefit from a hearing aid, children who are totally deaf, the KEM Hospital offers Cochlear Implant Surgery and the subsequent rehabilitation program.