Piaggio Group and Bambino Gesu’ Hospital: a new project in Vietnam at the National Hospital for Paediatrics in Hanoi with “Vespa for Children”

Apr 24 2013 17:58
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Hanoi (Vietnam), 24 April 2013 – The National Hospital for Paediatrics in Hanoi and the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome today officially launched a new cooperation project developed thanks to the support of Piaggio Vietnam; the new project is the first initiative of the “Vespa for Children” program, the new area of social activities recently announced by the Piaggio Group.

Vespa Hanoi

As the most important children’s hospital in Vietnam, Hanoi’s National Hospital for Paediatrics (NHP) leads advances in paediatric medicine throughout the country. The cooperation agreement between the NHP and the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital (OPBG) set up more than five years ago has driven the development and divulgation of technical and scientific expertise in a variety of medical fields, including Cardiac Surgery and Urological Surgery: more than 20 missions of specialists have travelled from Rome to Hanoi, and updating programs have been organised for local medical staff. Under the cooperation agreement, a number of children suffering from serious heart disease have been transferred to the central unit of the OPBG in Rome for surgery, and returned to their families in Vietnam in good health.

The new project presented today as part of the “Vespa for Children” initiative was developed in response to the need to help children affected by complex urological pathologies – such as genital-urinary malformations and kidney disease – who require surgery, dialysis and kidney transplants.

Speaking at today’s presentation, Piaggio Group Chairman and CEO Roberto Colaninno said: “I am very proud to be present at the launch of this new project between the National Hospital for Paediatrics of Hanoi and the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome, an initiative to which Piaggio Vietnam has contributed. The Piaggio Group has set up production facilities and marketing operations in many regions of the world and today is a well-established player here in Vietnam. As a responsible organisation we believe we should contribute to the quality of life in the communities where we operate, and this is why we have set up the “Vespa for Children” project, as a way to support the younger generations who are the future and the hope of the world. All over the planet, Vespa stands for quality of life, for reasons over and beyond the scooter’s style or the new fuel-efficient low-emission engines we have developed. As I often say, people riding a Vespa through the city have a smile on their faces. Through the initiative being launched today, I hope the Vespa can give many children and their families a new reason to smile.”

Giuseppe Profiti, President of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, said: “The initiative presented today is another step forward in the partnership between the Bambino Gesù and the National Hospital for Paediatrics in Hanoi. We have completed a three-year cardiology and cardiac surgery program with results that have made the NHP one of South East Asia’s most advanced centres today in the treatment of cardiac disease in children. Now we are commencing a new project on urological and kidney pathologies with the additional ambitious goal of achieving kidney transplants from live donors within the project’s three-year time line. Apart from all this, I believe it is very important that the project is not only a vital channel for medical and scientific knowledge transfers, but also an example of a typically Italian entrepreneurial approach around the world, which takes into account the needs of the local community and helps to improve the quality of life.”

The objectives of the cooperation program, illustrated today by Lorenzo Borghese, head of international operations at the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, fall into two categories:

  • Clinical treatment and assistance: 2,000 patients aged between 0 and 18 years stand to benefit from the possibility of specialist urological assistance, reconstructive urological surgery, dialysis and treatment for advanced chronic kidney disease. In this area, a number of patients will be selected for a kidney transplant. 
  • Training and education: the need to transfer competences from the OPBG specialists to local medical staff at the NHP will involve the Vietnamese personnel in a specific theoretical and practical training program teaching scientific competences in urological medicine and surgery and in kidney transplants from live donors.

Today’s meeting, held at the National Hospital for Paediatrics, was attended, among others, by the First Secretary of the Italian Embassy in Hanoi, Damiano Francovigh, and the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli. During the proceedings, the Deputy Minister for Health of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Nguyen Viet Tien, presented the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital with the “For People’s Health” award of the Vietnamese Ministry of Health, for its cooperation activities with the NHP.

 

 

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