Michael Schnapper
Wolfson Medical Center, Israel
Title: Differences in hospital admissions of refugee and local pediatric population in Israel
Biography
Biography: Michael Schnapper
Abstract
Background: The ongoing refugee crises around the world have raised significant concerns among medical communities worldwide. By the end of 2016, there were 40,274 registered refugees residing in Israel according to immigration authorities. It is estimated that among them 5500 are children.
Aim: To examine and identify the differences between refugee and Israeli children admitted to the pediatric department.
Methods: All data relevant to admissions to the pediatric department at "Wolfson Medical Center" in Israel, between the years 2013-2017 was collected. We than compared the data between two groups; refugees and local Israeli children.
Results: During our study, there were 654 refugee and 11,858 Israeli children admitted to the pediatric department from the Pediatric Emergency Department (admissions rate of 28.3% and 13.8% respectively). Average age of admission was 1.2 among refugees and 4.7 years in the local group (P<0.01). Average duration for a single hospital stay was 3.13 days in the refugee group and 2.49 days in the local group (P<0.01), with prolonged stay (i.e., longer than 14 days) also found to be significantly different with 2.7% of all admissions in the refugee group, whereas the control group had 2.3% prolonged admissions. We further found differences in common diagnoses leading to hospitalization with leading cause among refugees being skin infections whilst the gastrointestinal system was the predominant cause for admissions in the local group. Important information emerged regarding healthcare coverage. While refugee children had a coverage percentage of 76.76%, among Israeli children health care program coverage was of 98.35%.
Conclusions: In this retrospective study we found evidence of significant morbidity in children of refugees as compared to local Israeli Pediatric population. This is supported by higher admissions rates, younger age of admission and higher percentage in long duration of stay. Furthermore, there are major differences between the two populations in diagnosis leading to admission. With the ever growing global refugee crises generating an ever growing number of displaced children, these findings should prompt further study in order to benefit refugee children in welcoming communities worldwide.