Paediatric neurosurgery in India

In a vast country like India, with children constituting 40% of a total population of 900 million people, the need and scope for paediatric neurosurgery is enormous. Initial organised attempts to focus attention on the need for paediatric neurosurgery as a subspecialty were made in 1983 and 1987, respectively, by holding symposia on infections and tumours in children. However, when the Annual Conference of ISPN was held in Bombay this served as a great impetus to the development of paediatric neurosurgery as a subspecialty in this country. It led to the formation of the Indian Society for Paediatric Neurosurgery in the following year, which now has 90 neurosurgeons in full membership. It has held annual meetings ever since its inception and has held CME programmes with international faculty in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1998. Half a dozen neurosurgeons have already devoted themselves mainly to the practice of paediatric neurosurgery. Paediatric neurosurgery is best developed in a large multi-disciplinary paediatric institute. We have been able to establish a neurosurgical service at Jerbai Wadia Hospital for Children, a paediatric institute of repute in Mumbai, and hope to have training programmes and fellowships in the near future for both general and paediatric neurosurgeons, as they will have to continue treating cases of spina bifida and hydrocephalus for several years to come.