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The
President of the Republic received doctors and executives of Shriners
Children’s |
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Ways of expanding the presence of the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Cyprus so that our country can accept children with orthopaedic problems from neighbouring countries for surgeries and treatment were discussed during yesterday’s meeting of the President of the Republic, Mr Nikos Christodoulides, with officials, doctors and executives of Shriners Children’s (Shriners Hospitals for Children) at the Presidential Palace. At the meeting, which took
place in the presence of the Minister of Health, Dr Popi Kanari, the Director
of the Board of Directors at Shiners Hospitals for Children and Shriners
International, Mr James Ed Stolze, the head of the 22 Shriners hospitals, Mr
Jerry Cantt, and other Shriners executives, views were exchanged with the
President of the Republic on the basis of the common vision for the
establishment of Cyprus as a regional examination centre for the Shriners
Hospitals for Children, but mainly as a surgery and treatment centre, the
first in Europe. President Christodoulides was
informed about the work and activities of the Shriners Hospitals for Children,
which have signed a cooperation agreement with the State Health Services
Organisation (SHSO). In the framework of this cooperation, three specialised
surgical procedures are being performed for the first time at Archbishop
Makarios III Hospital in Cyprus by the doctors of Shriners hospitals, in
collaboration with Cypriot doctors. In this framework, the
President of the Republic and the Shriners officials discussed the
possibility of extending the cooperation agreement so that, at a later stage,
the surgeries on children from our wider region would not be performed in the
Shriners Hospitals in the USA, but in Cyprus. Shriners’ representatives
offered to return with concrete data in order to discuss the needs that
should be covered and to examine the possibility the Republic of Cyprus to
cover part of the cost of transportation and hospitality of the children and
their family members. In the last 42 years, four
thousand children from Cyprus have travelled to the USA for free surgeries by
doctors of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, with the help of the George
& Thelma Paraskevaides Foundation, while more than 18 thousand children
have been examined, free of charge, during the annual visits of the medical
teams to Cyprus. The President of the Republic
thanked the delegation of Shriners Hospitals for Children and the
Paraskevaides Foundation, and expressed the readiness of the state to support
the cooperation of Shriners with SHSO in order for Cyprus to become the
European regional centre for Shriners. Shriners International, one of the
largest charitable organisations since its foundation in 1872, has set as its
goal the provision of the best possible medical support, free of charge, to
children up to the age of 18 with special orthopaedic conditions and burns.
In its 150 years of operation, it has created a unique system of medical care
which includes 22 specialised hospitals in the USA, Canada and Mexico. (GS) |
