“One of our biggest concerns is the delay in accessing healthcare for specialist services. In ENT, we see many children who attend our clinic with advanced conditions.”

Dr Shazia Peer is a specialist Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Surgeon and is currently the Head of Paediatric Otolaryngology at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.  She loves working with children because they are young at heart and her passion is to continue to help children with breathing and voice problems.

Dr Peer has been involved in several life-saving airway surgeries, using her multi-disciplinary team approach which she brought back to South Africa after spending 2 years at the University of Toronto and SickKids Hospital in Canada.

She recently was a part of the ground-breaking surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital when unborn baby, Kiiara Louw, was diagnosed with Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome (CHAOS). Kiiara’s larynx was not fully developed and this resulted in sealed airways at vocal cord level. She was delivered via Caesarean section and before the umbilical cord was cut, the ENT surgical team that included Dr Jessica McGuire bypassed the obstruction by inserting a tracheostomy tube below the windpipe and establishing a patent airway.  Kiiara was stabilised at Groote Schuur’s new Neonatal ICU Unit before moving to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital newly upgraded ICU. Both these projects were enabled thanks to public donations via The Children’s Hospital Trust.

Other than airway conditions, the ENT department’s vision is to help treat children with severe to profound hearing loss with aural rehabilitation that includes cochlear implantation.  Dr Peer is one of a team of specialists involved in the Cochlear Implant Programme at Groote Schuur Hospital that is headed by Dr Tasneem Harris, and they expect to expand the programme to include children too.

“One of our biggest concerns is the delay in accessing healthcare for specialist services. In ENT, we see many children who attend our clinic with advanced conditions. Children may have delays in accessing care for obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, or present with hearing loss from chronic ear infections, or advanced laryngeal papillomas that cannot sufficiently be removed to create a clear airway, requiring a tracheostomy.”

The ENT Division at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital is one of the country’s foremost centres for paediatric airway surgery.  We are able to safely diagnose upper airway problems in children and are able to manage these often-complex conditions with advanced and skilled airway interventions.”

Dr Peer admits that she doesn’t “balance” work and family well.  She loves what she does and therefore often takes work home.  Thankfully, her family is understanding and supportive of what it means to her to be an airway specialist.

 

“I knew I was going to be a doctor the first time I heard my own heartbeat with a stethoscope.”

Dr Shazia Peer

MBBCh, FCORL(SA), MMED(Otol) UCT

Paediatric Otolaryngology Fellowship at SickKids Hospital, University of Toronto

Specialist ENT Surgeon and Head of Paediatric Otolaryngology

The Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital