{
  "abstract": "Emergency conditions in Pakistan, including injuries, obstetric complications and infections, account for more than 15% of all deaths.1 Yet emergency medicine (EM) remains under-recognised and under-resourced. Most public emergency departments (EDs) rely on general practitioners without formal EM training.2 The specialty of EM is only partially recognised, with only nine EM residency programmes across the country as of 2024.3 High caseloads, resource limitations and insufficient support contribute to burn-out among ED staff.4 Fragmentation across Pakistan’s emergency care system limits coordination and quality improvement. There is no unified national policy or set of standards governing emergency care delivery, data collection or quality metrics. This leads to significant variability in patient outcomes across regions and between public and private providers.5 The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed these systemic gaps. During peak surges, patients queued for hours outside tertiary hospitals due to bottlenecks in triage and limited critical care capacity.6 Prehospital care is similarly fragmented. Services are primarily provided by charity-run organisations, which often lack centralised coordination with hospitals and access to necessary equipment.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Emergency Medicine, The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan"
      ],
      "name": "Zeeshan Ahsan"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Strengthening emergency care in Pakistan: priorities for reform",
  "uid": "5bb8c7d2-5d70-5bdf-af31-7f8c068628d0"
}