MAGIS Foundation: Formation and technological innovation in Chad through a collaboration project
A new collaboration project promoted by the University of Rome Tor Vergata, in partnership with MAGIS and other Italian and international organisations, was set up to improve the health of the inhabitants ofChad, a central African country with a very fragile economic, social and health situation. The project envisages the upgrading of skills and infrastructures over three years to improve hospital services for 4,000 patients.
The project has an integrated, collaborative approach that aims to balance in a sustainable way the health of people, animals and the environment, in the knowledge that the variation of one also changes the others. “This approach is very much felt in Chad, where people are much more in touch with nature and animals than in more developed countries. This is in fact a lesson that the Chadians are giving to us Italians, and we in return offer the appropriate tools to improve medical care. This is the added value of cooperation,’ remarks the project leader Vittorio Colizzi, Professor of Immunology and Pathology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
In more detail, the project consists of enhancing the formation of Chadian doctors through advanced training courses, scholarships and internships, on-site missions, and video-conference lectures by Italian teachers. In parallel, there is the strengthening of technological platforms, innovative for Chad, that is the set of instruments, protocols, materials and software that guarantee the complex functioning of diagnostic, clinical and surgical platforms. The dual strengthening of skills and infrastructures makes it possible to improve and create new hospital services: Laparoscopic Surgery, Cardiology Service (ECG and echocardiography), Gastro-Hepatology Service.
The renewal of the Specialisation Schools in these fields which is entrusted to Italian lecturers on mission in Chad, is also being planned. At the end of their studies, five specialisation students will be selected for further training stages in Italy at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
There is strong collaboration between the network of organisations: at the forefront is the University of Rome Tor Vergata together with the Magis Foundation (a Jesuit NGO based in Rome and present in Chad) and the Institute for Biological Systems (ISB) of the National Research Centre (CNR), which collaborate with the two hospitals in the capital N’Djamena: the National Referral Hospital and the Le Bon Samaritain University Hospital.
The project is financed by the Italian Development Cooperation Agency (AICS) in Khartoum and enjoys close collaboration with the Chadian Ministry of Health, which has included it in the National Health Policy Plan 2016-2030. The project – entitled ‘Italy-Chad Health Project: Training and Technological Innovation AID 12582’ – was presented a few days ago to the Chadian Minister of Health and National Solidarity Abdelmadjid Abderahim by an Italian delegation on a mission to Chad, led by Giuseppe Tisone, Professor of General Surgery and Director of the School of General Surgery Specialisation at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
