50 international medical partnership agreements concluded between Ukrainian and foreign healthcare institutions
During the visit of Minister of Health of Sweden Acko Ankarberg Johansson, the 50th memorandum of the international medical partnership was signed between the Spinalis Foundation and the Rivne Regional War Veteran Hospital. The cooperation will focus on rehabilitation and will help restore and develop healthcare facilities, introduce advanced international technologies, European standards and procedures for providing medical care in Ukrainian healthcare facilities, etc.
It should be noted that the international medical partnership initiative was launched last year at the Third Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen under the patronage of First Lady Olena Zelenska. At that time, 25 Ukrainian hospitals got “twin” hospitals in different countries to share experience and best practices. During the year, the number of memorandums of cooperation signed under the international medical partnership initiative doubled.
“Last year, thanks to the support of First Lady Olena Zelenska during the third First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit in Kyiv, we launched an important initiative - the International Medical Partnership Program. Then Ukrainian hospitals began to actively develop cooperation with twinned hospitals from around the world. To date, 50 medical partnerships have been concluded, which is twice as many as at the start. This shows that our healthcare system needs the initiative, as it allows doctors to share best practices and experience, and thus improve the quality of medical care.”
Today, 38 advanced hospitals from 19 countries are twinned with Ukrainian medical institutions. These include the United Kingdom, France, Moldova, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Israel, Sweden, North Macedonia, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, France, Romania, Turkey, and others.
The partnership involves 32 Ukrainian medical institutions from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Ternopil, Zakarpattia oblasts and the city of Kyiv.
For example, the initiative helped to reach agreements on cooperation between the leading Berlin university hospital Charité and five Ukrainian medical institutions in the field of mental rehabilitation, and BG Kliniken, a leading German hospital chain specializing in rehabilitation, and a number of other Ukrainian hospitals.
One of the powerful results of the partnerships is the development of reconstructive surgery. In particular, it is the effective work of the French-Ukrainian mission of reconstructive surgeons based at the Superhumans Center. Thanks to this, injured Ukrainians who sustained mine-blast injuries as a result of the war have the opportunity to receive the necessary treatment and reconstructive intervention from the best specialists free of charge. The fourth French-Ukrainian mission has now been completed.
Other examples of cooperation include the development of plastic reconstructive surgery and maxillofacial surgery. As part of the cooperation with the Acibadem Clinic and the Dnipro Family Health Center, Turkish doctor Agir Hakan came to Dnipro to perform highly complex surgeries on patients, including many children. Over the past year, more than 60 children were operated on together with Ukrainian surgeons.
Students of Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University completed an internship at the Medical University of Vienna. As part of the partnership between the universities, pharmacological cooperation in the hematology field is underway.
Doctors from the Lviv Children’s Medical Center visited the Necker Enfants Children’s Hospital in Paris. As part of the training, the specialists were trained on the Da Vinci robotic complex. Robot-assisted surgery is an advanced technology in the field of surgery. During such operations, a robot is used that is controlled by the surgeon’s hands.
Thus, by strengthening international medical partnerships, Ukrainian doctors can exchange experience with their foreign colleagues, and the medical sector is able to develop at all levels. In the future, the experience gained will be implemented in the best practices of providing medical care to Ukrainian patients.
It should be recalled that recently, the fourth First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit was held at the initiative of First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska. The central issue of the event was the safety of children and youth during war, in the family, at school, in cyberspace, and in the environmental dimension.