Ethiopia and Israel established diplomatic relations before couple of decades. The two countries collaboration is growing from time to time. Currently, the two countries are cooperating in various fields including technology, agriculture, health, educations, and business, among others. The two countries have longstanding historical relations.
Recently, the Israeli non-profit organization Save a Child’s Heart and Black Lion Specialized Hospital have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enable perform lifesaving cardiac procedures to 20 Ethiopian children annually. In addition, the Israeli medical team has given free eye treatment to numerous residents of the Addis Ababa city.
Regarding the Israeli health delegation’s journey to Ethiopia, Israel’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, Aleligne Admasu said that Israeli doctors have been providing various medical treatments in Ethiopia. The medical treatment service helps to elevate the two countries people-to-people ties, he said.
As to him, the delegation provides child heart and free eye treatment services that enabled to restore sights of numerous individuals that could not afford medical payment.
Likewise, the Israeli doctors provide successive trainings to various health professionals in Ethiopia so as to boost their competency. According to him, Israel highly values its partnership with Ethiopia and desirous of sharing its innovative economic development wisdom.
He further said that the signed agreement and partnership between the Israeli and Ethiopian hospitals deserves recognition as it pledges to save the lives of children.
Israel highly values sharing knowledge and experience to sisterly countries than donating money, he noted.
The ambassador urged pertinent stakeholders to exert utmost efforts to sustainably alleviate the problems of children through upgrading the Black Lion Hospital’s pediatric cardiac care center.
Save a Child’s Heart Executive Director Simon Fisher said that the signed MoU will enable to restart the activities of the organization that were interrupted due to COVID-19. The MoU will also renew a similar agreement that was signed between the university and Save a Child’s Heart in 2014 and sought to strengthen 28 years of partnership between Save a Child’s Heart and Ethiopia.
“We are very pleased with the signing of this MoU. Save a Child’s Heart has a deep and long-standing connection with Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital. We are committed to continuing and providing lifesaving cardiac care treatment services for the children of Ethiopia as well as provide training to the medical team of the hospital. We thank our partners at the Tikur Anbessa Hospital and we look forward to collaborating with them ad working together to save the lives of Ethiopian children.”
More importantly, the MoU is important to relive the suffering of numerous children in Ethiopia through providing swift cardiac treatment services, he said.
“We are looking forward to the first group of children from the Black Lion Hospital to come to Israel to undergo lifesaving cardiac treatment. The organization is ready to provide the treatment services to more than 20 children annually in Israel.”
Accordingly, Save a Child’s Heart will further provide various training to the Black Lion Hospital’s physicians with a view of strengthening the already existing pediatric cardiac program at the hospital.
Save a Child’s Heart was founded in 1996 by the late Israeli Dr. Ami Cohen when an Ethiopian doctor communicated him and asked for his unreserved supports to help two Ethiopian children in desperate need of heart surgery. Then the children were flown to Israel, operated and saved, and in the coming months more children were brought to Israel for lifesaving heart surgery. By the end of that year, Dr. Cohen decided to found Save a Child’s Heart with the main mission of saving the lives of Ethiopian and other countries’ children from where access to pediatric cardiac care is limited or non-existent.
Since then, Save a Child’s Heart has treated more than 850 children from Ethiopia and trained four pediatric cardiac care surgeons, four pediatric cardiologists, two intensivists, two anesthesiologists and one heart lung machine technician, all of whom are now practicing the treatment locally.
Addis Ababa University College of Health Sciences Chief Executive Director. Andualem Deneke (MD) on his part said that the hospital has been providing cardiac care services to numerous children in collaboration with Save a Child’s Heart.
The MoU has two core objectives first to provide special cardiac care surgery treatment to children in Israel and second to improve the Black Lion Hospital’s pediatric cardiac care services, he said.
As to him, the signed MoU will have significant contributions to boost the capacity of the hospital’s cardiac care center.
Moreover, the Israeli medical doctor’s delegation led by the Operation Ethiopia, a humanitarian organization provided an eye treatment service to more than 2,000 Ethiopians.
Operation Ethiopia Founder and Director Prof. Morris Hartstein, said that Operation Ethiopia aspires to provide quality eye care, including treatment for and prevention of blindness and eye disease to low income earning people in Ethiopia.
“So far, operation Ethiopia treated over 2,000 people and we provide medication and glasses, he said. Accordingly, the Israeli health delegation performed 400 sight-restoring cataract surgeries through.”
The collaborations of the two countries especially in the health sector enable relive patients’ stress and cure numerous Ethiopians through providing state of the art health services in renowned Israeli hospitals. The Israeli embassy in Ethiopia also exerts efforts to help Ethiopians and Israeli Jews living in the country. In doing so, the two countries diplomatic ties also strengthen from time to time.
BY TEWODR0OS KASSA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 8 AUGUST 2023
