Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Khalifa Foundation funds distance medical services project in Maldives

H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, attended today at the Presidential Palace in his capacity as Chairman of Khalifa Foundation for Humanitarian Works, a signing ceremony of a grant offered by the Foundation to the Maldives for Distance Medical Services.
The agreement was inked by Ahmed Juma Al Za'abi, Deputy Chairman of the Foundation and visiting Maldives Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem.

The agreement is part of the Foundation's humanitarian initiatives to fund sustainable projects that create job opportunities in aid recipient countries and raise standards of basic services particularly in health and education.

The Foundation will fund the Khalifa bin Zayed Distance Medical Services project which includes a network of 35 sites across the Maldives. Under the project the nursing department at the faculty of medicine will be named after Sheikh Khalifa.
The distance diagnostic and curative network will have a central nerve centre and peripheral kiosks. Doctors at the centre examine medical reports raised by nursing staff and prescribe treatment.
The project, the first of its kind to be funded by the Foundation, will offer health care services to more than 350,000 persons a year.
The grant calls for training of local doctors, technicians and biotechnology specialists abroad.
Before the signature of the agreement, Sheikh Mansour and the Maldives foreign minister explored ways of enhancing bilateral relations.
Sheikh Mansour said the development grant fits well into the Foundation's strategy which does not call for offering assistance only but also for building infrastructure projects in health and educational fields which improve living conditions and create jobs.

He added that the programme of distance treatment and medical kiosks would ease the logistics woes by delivering health services to remote areas in the scattered islands.

The Maldives minister said the grant would help improve living conditions of thousands of islanders living in far-flung regions that can not be accessed by health professionals due to their harsh terrains.
The project, he added, would train hundreds of medical and and nursing cadres who will operate these kiosks .

WAM/TF

Source: http://www.wam.ae

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