Vespa for children - motorcycles and medicine
Piaggio support a collaboration between a hospital in Rome and one in Hanoi to help children
John Newman
Last week on April the 24th in Hanoi, Vietnam, The National Hospital for Paediatrics in Hanoi and the Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital in Rome launched a new cooperative project between the two hospitals, supported by the Piaggio Vietnam "Vespa for Children" programme.
Hanoi's National Hospital for Paediatrics (NHP) is in the forefront of paediatric medicine throughout Vietnam and the cooperation between the NHP and the Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital (OPBG) in Rome, which was set up five years ago, has already driven the development of technical expertise in many areas of paediatrics. Advances have been made due to this collaboration which have led to improvements in cardiac and urological surgery. Specialists have travelled from Rome to Hanoi and instigated programmes to update local medical staff . Several children suffering from serious heart disease have been transferred to the POBG in Rome and returned home to Vietnam after life saving surgery.
The new project presented on the 24th is part of the "Vespa for Children" initiative which was developed in response to the need to help children affected by complex urological problems - who require surgery, dialysis and kidney transplants.
Speaking at the 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 programme 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 programme aims to help with two categories:
1. Clinical treatment and assistance:
Two thousand 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.
2. 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 programme, teaching scientific competences in urological medicine and surgery and in kidney transplants from live donors.
The meeting on April 24th, 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 cooperative activities with the NHP.
Information from The Piaggio Group Press
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