Permanent Medical Humanitarian Programme MEDEVAC

+ Government programme coordinated by the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic

+ Implemented since 1993

+ Fixed budget of approx. 2.33 mil EUR

+ In cooperation with leading hospitals

+ 4 areas of implementation: deployment of Czech medical teams abroad; medical humanitarian evacuations to the Czech Republic; specialist internships and trainings for medical sta� in the Czech Republic and abroad; fi nancial donations to support the enhancement of medical infrastructure

medevac@mvcr.cz MEDEVAC czech MEDEVAC czech

Published by the Ministry of the Interior, Department for Asylum and Migration Policy, January 2019 Printed by the Ministry of the Interior Press in Prague in 2019 All photographs have been published with the consent of their authors: © Jiří Pasz; Adam Hříbal, Štěpán Lohr Graphic design: Ondřej Strnad

Czech medical teams deployed on missions abroad

Training session for foreign medical sta�

Medical humanitarian evacuation of persons to the Czech Republic for treatment

Financial donations to foreign countries for developing healthcare infrastructure

Reconnaissance mission

Implementation of the MEDEVAC Programme in 2017

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3

In recent years, the word “migration” has attracted a huge interest from the public and has become an everyday topic in daily life. Some of us imagine birds migrating to warmer places, and others see a group of people floating in a boat, as is often presented to us in today’s media. Regardless of what this word conjures up for you, you should know that the Czech Republic is not indifferent to the current situation and that it actively participates in coping with the migration cri-sis in the countries that are most affected by it.

Therefore, please allow me to highlight the achieve-ments of one of the Ministry of the Interior’s activ-ities, the permanent medical humanitarian pro-gramme MEDEVAC, on the following pages. Through this programme, the Czech Republic provides medical assistance to vulnerable groups of people in regions stricken by instability, makes it possible to train for-eign medical staff, and helps strengthen the medical infrastructure where needed. On the following pages, you will have the opportunity to read about the spe-cific results the programme achieved in 2017. How-ever, the success of the programme is not depicted only in figures, but mainly by the individual stories it helped come true.

Jordan remained the programme’s priority coun-try in 2017. Here physicians operated not only on Syrian patients living in refugee camps, but also on the most vulnerable nationals of Jordan. Thanks to the expertly performed medical interventions, pa-tients were able to see the faces of their relatives

again after a long time and were able to return to the labour market. Today, a cataract operation is al-most a routine procedure for a Czech citizen. Howev-er, without treatment which refugees often have no access to, an individual is excluded from the labour market and this very often contributes to the pover-ty of the entire family.

The programme newly focused closely on Africa. Therefore, two more countries, Ethiopia and Senegal, joined the list of countries in which the programme had already been implemented. We remained in Mo-rocco where the medical team operated on children with congenital heart defects. It is encouraging to see how previously sad, tired children are again full of energy and heartily play with other children.

Apart from the medical interventions themselves, the MEDEVAC programme also engaged in training of medical staff. This year, training started anew in Ukraine. Even though this country is culturally and

linguistically close to us, there is a substantial lack of post-operative care and rehabilitation in general. Therefore, it has been gratifying that we were able to send a team of specialists to Ukraine who trained local medical staff to care for patients after compli-cated surgeries. A successful surgery is only one half of the road towards a full recovery.

The aforementioned activities are only a small part of the wide range of the MEDEVAC programme. I would like to take this opportunity to thank every-one who has contributed to its running as well as the medical teams and hospitals that make it func-tion. Thanks to their work, the programme has be-come an important part of the Czech foreign aid and helps spread the good name of the Czech Republic abroad. I firmly believe that this will continue in the future as well.

Pavla Novotná

A word of introductionby the Director of the Department for Asylum and Migration Policy

The MEDEVAC Programme

in 2017

5

The MEDEVAC Programme in numbers

2017• 19 medical teams deployed abroad

• 957 expert surgical procedures abroad

• 935 patients operated

• Over 1,500 expert diagnostic examinations

• 7 reconnaissance missions abroad

• 1 visit by foreign physicians to the Czech Republic

• 1 medical humanitarian evacuation from Ukraine for treatment in the Czech Republic

• 4 expert internships of foreign medical staff at Czech hospital (13 individuals from Iraq, Morocco and Ukraine)

• 4 training sessions for foreign medical staff abroad (Iraq, Nepal, Ukraine)

• partnership with the Prague Surgical Days conference

• participation at Prague Museum Night 2017

• 2 fi nancial donations totalling approx. 349 000 EUR for hospital equipment and training of physicians in Mosul, Iraq

Care International / 2017 /fi nancial donation / Iraq

General University Hospital / 2017 /

traumatology / training for Kurds / Czech

Republic

Olomouc University Hospital / 2017 / traumatology / dispatching a medical team / Jordan

Motol University Hospital / 2017 / ENT / dispatching a medical team /

Senegal

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Jordan14 medical teams, 876 surgeries

Costs: approx. 1.6 mil EUR

Cambodia1 medical team, 13 surgeries

Costs: approx. 100 800 EUR

Project Countries in 2017

Ukraine1 reconnaissance mission

1 humanitarian evacuation

1 training session abroad / 15 trainees

1 Study stay of Ukrainian physicians in the Czech Republic / 2 internships

Costs: approx. 32 800 EUR

Iraq2 reconnaissance missions

2 medical teams, 10 surgeries

1 study stay in the Czech Republic / 3 trainees

1 training session abroad

2 financial donations

Costs: approx. 442 000 EUR

Lebanon + Ethiopia2 reconnaissance missions

Costs: approx. 9 270 EUR

Nepal2 training sessions abroad / 21 trainees

Costs: approx. 13 880 EUR

Senegal1 reconnaissance mission

2 medical teams, 48 surgeries

Costs: approx. 73 660 EUR

Morocco1 reconnaissance mission

1 medical team, 10 surgeries

2 training sessions in the Czech Republic / 8 trainees

Costs: approx. 65 900 EURCzech medical teams deployed on missions abroadTraining session for foreign medical staff

Medical humanitarian evacuation of per­sons to the Czech Republic for treatmentFinancial donations to foreign countries for developing healthcare infrastructure

Reconnaissance mission

7

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Gynaecology

Physiotherapy

Paediatric heart surgery

Ukraine• Pilot training seminar at

Kiev Regional Hospital in physiotherapy and ergotherapy

• 6 trainers/3 medical teams • Focus on rehabilitation of

orthopaedic and neurologi-cal patients after stroke and on diagnosing patients in physiotherapy/30 trainees

Jordan• physiotherapist sent as

part of the traumatology mission

Jordan• 2 medical teams• 25 surgeries on children

with congenital heart defects

Morocco• 1 medical team• 10 surgeries on children

with congenital heart defects

Cambodia• 1 medical team• 13 surgeries on children

with congenital heart defects

Senegal• 1 medical team• 23 patients examined• 13 surgeries

(cervical conization)

Deployment of medical teams abroad

9

OphthalmologyInfectology

Orthopaedics

Jordan• 5 medical teams • 703 cataract surgeries

Jordan• 3 medical teams• 74 surgeries on adult

and paediatric patients

Iraq• 1 medical team• Prevention and treatment

of infectious post-operative complications

Jordan• 1 medical team• Education of hospital staff

and patients on hygiene• Prevention of the spread of

infectious diseases

10

Plastic and reconstructive surgery

ENT

Traumatology

Senegal• 1 medical team• 35 surgeries on adult

and paediatric patients

Jordan• 2 medical teams• 43 surgeries on adult

and paediatric patients

Jordan• 2 medical teams• 31 surgeries on adult and paediatric

patients

Iraq – the Iraqi Region of Kurdistan• 1 medical team• 10 surgeries

Bulovka Hospital

Central Military Hospital

General University Hospital in Prague

Hradec Králové University Hospital

Motol University Hospital

Olomouc University Hospital

11

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MoroccoTwo 14-day internships for two Moroccan physicians (an anaesthesiologist and a neonatologist) and six nurs-es on post-operative ICU care for paediatric patients with congenital heart disease were realised in the Czech Re-public in collaboration between the Motol University Hos-pital’s Children’s Heart Centre and the Moroccan charity hospital Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Hassan II in Fez.

Internshipsin the Czech Republic

IraqA training seminar for Kurdish physicians in traumatology was organised in collaboration with the General Universi-ty Hospital in Prague, the First Surgical Clinic of Thorac-ic, Abdominal and Injury Surgery, and the First Faculty of Medicine at the Charles University. The seminar was attended by three surgeons who had already undergone a basic course in the Czech Republic in 2016. The training programme included lectures and practical examples dur-ing surgeries, model simulation at the Institute of Physiol-ogy of the First Faculty of Medicine at Charles University, and a practical workshop at the MEDIN training centre in Nové Město na Moravě.

13

Financial DonationsIraq

• Two medical centres in western Mosul renovated and equipped with furniture, medical supplies, devices and pharmaceuticals

• One system for water fi ltration and chlorination supplied to one medical centre

• Approximately 21,000 aid recipients

approx. 194 000 EUR

• Distribution of hygienic packages to 2,250 households of internally displaced persons in refugee camps in the Nin-iveh Governorate. Th e packages contained basic hygienic items for personal hygiene and information about basic hy-giene and the prevention of the spread of diseases.

• Five medical centres in the Niniveh Governorate equipped with sterilisation material

• Approximately 6,400 aid recipients

approx. 155 070 EUR