News

Anders Lygdman, Senior advisor International aid at Sahlgrenska I.C. recently returned from a field trip to Somaliland. He was there to follow-up and evaluate the international aid Region Västra Götaland is supporting through our partner Human Bridge. Joining him on this tour around recipient hospitals was Jan Wandeby, project controller and biomedical technician at Human Bridge, Hussein Abyan, project coordinator for Somalia at Human Bridge and Håkan Bergström journalist at the newspaper Hallands Nyheter.

By doing these on-the-site visits it is possible to assess to what degree the donated medical equipment have been put into use, its functionality and follow the result in comparison to the need analysis made before the interventions. Also, it is of utmost importance to have a dialogue with the recipients, such as hospital management and health authorities, in order to safeguard transparency and to evaluate the donation process.

Hargeisa Group of Hospitals. Medical devices donated by Human Bridge in 2014 is still fully functional and in use.

We could see the positive impact that our support has made for the low-resource environment that Somaliland health care providers operate in. Our donations of functional basic equipment, medical devices and consumables are a contribution which is needed and valued locally. For example; at the Hargeisa Group of Hospitals it was possible to see how equipment donated in 2014 still were in use every day and in Berbera District Hospital a recently donated ultrasound had started to make a significant change in the care given to future mothers. At Gabiley hospital, close to the Ethiopian border, the current drought has put pressure on scarce resources due to a massive influx of refugees and the full donation from Human Bridge had been put into action.

Jan Wandeby making a functional test of donated equipment together with hospital technicians at Berbera Hospital.

However, it was also evident that a careful assessment before each donation is necessary. Due to organizational weakness in general, and often in combination with lack of skilled staff, a donation always runs the risk to end up in a storage unused. Unfortunately this was the case at one of the hospitals. Measures have now been set into place to correct the situation, a fact that shows the importance of follow-up and dedicated monitoring. Each donation is a responsibility, not only for the receiver but also for the donator.

The delegation visited 10 hospitals in total (six in the capital Hargeisa, two in Berbera and one in Gabiley and Wajaale respectively. Out of these seven have received support from Human Bridge during the period 2014-2017. Anders Lygdman also revisited two hospitals that received their first medical equipment donations back in 2014.

Andreas, our administrative officer, is going abroad for an internship as part of his master programme in Global studies. We are currently looking for a temp to fill his position.

Are you studying public administration, political science, economics or similar and are interested in combining this with a part-time job? Read more in Administrative Officer Sahlgrenska International Care or contact us for more information.

Amal from Saudi Arabia and Jairo from Colombia just completed a two year Specialist Training Programme in Oral Medicine given at the Institute of Odontology, in joint collaboration between University of Gothenburg and the Public Dental Service in Region Västra Götaland. This was celebrated at a graduation ceremony where they got the opportunity to present their research findings.

Congratulations! We hope that the knowledge you gained here will be of great use wherever in the world you decide to pursue you careers.

Maria Munoz from Spain.  Sjoerd Walburg from the Netherlands. A Communications manager at a University hospital in Valencia and a Manager of an Emergency department in Alkmaar. What do they have in common? Both are a part of HOPE, the European Hospital and Healthcare Federation’s Exchange programme for healthcare professionals.

–  Sweden was our top choice as it is a healthcare system known for high quality, says Maria and Sjoerd.

Region Västra Götaland together with CHI, Centre for Health Care Improvement, Chalmers University of Technology are hosting the delegates and have prepared a four week long tour to healthcare departments around the area. One of the stops was at Sahlgrenska International Care.

Thank you for visiting and sharing experiences from your own countries. I hope you left inspired and with a better understanding of what we do – export world class healthcare expertise offered by the public healthcare system in Region Västra Götaland to customers worldwide.

The 3rd WHO Global Forum on Medical Devices is right now taking place in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose with the conference is to show commitment towards improved access to safe, effective and innovative quality medical devices as a contribution to universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals. There are 700 participants from government, academia, civil society/ NGO, industry and the UN.

We had a talk with Anders Lygdman, Senior Advisor for International Aid who is on site representing Region Västra Götaland and Sahlgrenska I.C.

Hi Anders!

What are your first impressions?

– I feel that this is a good opportunity to raise awareness about the work that is being done on international aid and medical device donations in a forum where many of the important actors are present. Also very excited about the fact that our European Working Group for Medical Devices in Developing Countries is exhibiting together here at the conference for the first time.

There is a wide range of plenary sessions, panel discussions and workshops to choose from. What is your favorite so far?

– For me, the sessions on defining methods of increasing access to priority medical devices under Universal Health Coverage in compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals have been particularly interesting since it has a connection to our work with medical device donations. The demonstrations of development and use of innovative and affordable technologies has also given me some food for thought.

Since 2013 the organizations Cauto (Italy), Medicus Mundi (Italy), University of Brescia, Legambiente Lombardia och Ateliere Fara Frontiere (Roumania) have been cooperating in the EU-funded project LifeMED.

LifeMED deals with the management of discarded medical equipment and devices. The project primarily addresses  the environmental problem of sustainable waste and natural management. It supports waste prevention programmes and measures to promote the application of the waste hierarchy.

Anders Lygdman, International Aid Coordinator at Sahlgrenska I.C., was invited to share our experiences within this field at an international workshop in Brescia, Italy, between 25-27 January. His speech emphasized that the establishment of a public system for collection and donation of medical equipment in Region Västra Götaland has increased the effectiveness in the gathering of functional medical equipment/material that otherwise would go to destruction. The improved coordination on a policy level has led to an increased number of donors and growing volumes designated for aid projects.

To all of our customers and partners around the globe.

For the third time European organizations assembled in Paris for a round-table meeting in order to discuss subjects of mutual interest and exchange experiences.

On the agenda of the 2016 meeting was the completion of the networks pamphlet on the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment)-directive and its implications for medical device donations. The proceedings also included sharing of best practices in the donation process as well as in depth discussions concerning capacity building of partners in recipient countries. A special session was dedicated to the result of a recent study on how to reinforce the biomedical profession in Africa.

The network has been up and running since 2013 and consists of 10-15 organizations. In order to learn more about how it can be formalized going forward Lori Warrens, executive manager of Medsurplus Alliance in USA, was invited to share their experiences from forming the Alliance. Medsurplus Alliance gather US-based organizations and have developed a mutual system of accreditation, a code of conduct and a toolkit for medical donations.

We have an open position as an international coordinator. Are you fluent in Swedish and English? Do you have experience within healthcare, political science or administration? Are you curious about global issues? Since our customers come from all over the world, this may be the job for you.

Apply here .

Over the years Sahlgrenska International Care has had a small but constant in-flux of Japanese dentists. Today there are a number of connections and partnerships between the Institute of Odontology and our former postgraduate dentists now working in Japan.

Our educational offer has however changed the last years and now also consists of shorter courses for groups of dentists as well as customized courses in Medicine at our Centres of Excellence. Linda Olsson, Education manager, and Paulina Sarbinowska, Marketing manager, went to Japan to investigate the interest for new collaborations in this area.

After a careful selection together with local expertise at Business Sweden’s Tokyo office, we met with three private university hospitals with different profiles.Juntendo University Hospital main site is located in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.

It has been in operation since 1838 but as it does at Sahlgrenska University Hospital the tradition and renewal go hand in hand. On a national level Juntendo stands out in one area in particular, Sports medicine.

At Showa University Hospital Dean Tadashi Hisamitsu welcomed us together with his colleagues from the Departments of Urology, Radiology and the International Exchange Center. Besides the Graduate school in Medicine there is one in Dentistry, Pharmacy as well as the latest addition – Nursing and Rehabilitation sciences. The emphasize on clinical practice and a team based working approach is similar to the one found in a Swedish healthcare environment.

During the last meeting we got a round tour of Keio University Hospital.

They are expanding and recently opened up a new building were different Centres of Excellence are gathered.

It is always inspiring to hear about the thought behind a new centre and even more so to see the end result. At the Centre for Preventive medicine the one stop shop model allows the patient to undergo all the checkups, not only in one place, but in a logical step by step order circlewise.

As the in-flow of patients from neighboring countries is increasing they are putting a lot of effort to create new routines for the coordination of this group of customers.

We thank all of you who took the time to meeting with us and look forward to continue the discussions about possible collaborations going forward.