The Chain of Hope Belgium runs long-term projects. Its aim is to help local staffs to care, in a self-sufficient way, children with pathologies requiring specialized technical operations.

Surgical missions

Surgical missions are done in Africa and Latin America in order to improve the access to special healthcare for children. The countries where we act have been defined according to the local requests.

The objectives of these missions are many:

• Examine, operate, and care a large number of children
• Train physicians and paramedics thanks to working in pairs. The aim is the autonomy of the local staff in taking charge of the paediatric pathologies
• Provide medical material and equipment

 

The Chain of Hope Belgium carries out:

• Missions to perform cardiac surgery and catheterization, orthopaedic, ENT/cervicofacial and urological surgery
• 1 to 3 missions per year in Nicaragua, Rwanda, Benin, Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo. Each mission lasts 8 to 15 days
• 10 to 30 surgeries in various disciplines and about 50 specialized consultations during each mission

 

The staff includes volunteer surgeons and physicians who are experts in paediatric subject areas and other specialized medical professionals (nursing staff, biotechnicians, physiotherapist, prosthetists…)

The cost of a mission ranges from 3.000 to 30.000 euros depending on the destination, the discipline and the staff setting up.

Setting up of the staff

The voluntary members are experts in medical treatments of paediatric pathologies and come from different Belgian and French hospitals like « Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc », « UZ Gent », « Chirec », « Hôpital Reine Fabiola », « Hôpital de Jolimont », « CHU Ambroise Paré », …

Involved countries

Currently the Chain of Hope Belgium is active in the following countries:

Benin	Tanguieta	Hôpital Saint-Jean de Dieu
Rwanda	Kigali	King Faisal Hospital
Senegal	Dakar	Hôpital Albert Royer
Nicaragua	Managua	Hospital La Mascota
DR of Congo	Kinshasa	Clinique Ngaliema et Unikin

Long term projects

The medical and surgical missions are included in projects devoted to training and to the improvement of the technical and sanitary environment. They are carried out in partnership with the local structures and the governments of the countries. This is done in accordance with a sustainable development objective. The practical objectives are worked out in collaboration with the executive committees of the hospitals involved in the projects.

A sustainable action

In the framework of this sustainable action, the objective is to improve the access to and the quality of the specialized care for the children in their own country.

The strengthening of the access to specialized paediatric care includes:

• The medical and surgical care for children in the partner countries as part of a technology transfer and empowerment process
• Advocacy actions in regards to the government and institutional authorities of the partner countries
• Finding solutions and implementing them to enable financial access to specialized healthcare

The improvement of the healthcare quality for the children includes:

• The theoretical and practical training of local multidisciplinary staffs during the medical and surgical missions. The obtention of grants for short period (3 months) or long period (1 to 2 years) abroad trainings (Europe, India, South Africa, …)
• The improvement of the sanitary and technical environment of the partner hospitals in order to create reference center