Press Releases

Ways of expanding the presence of the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Cyprus so that our country can accept children with orthopaedic problems from neighbouring countries for surgeries and treatment were discussed during yesterday’s meeting of the President of the Republic, Mr Nikos Christodoulides, with officials, doctors and executives of Shriners Children’s (Shriners Hospitals for Children) at the Presidential Palace.

At the meeting, which took place in the presence of the Minister of Health, Dr Popi Kanari, the Director of the Board of Directors at Shiners Hospitals for Children and Shriners International, Mr James Ed Stolze, the head of the 22 Shriners hospitals, Mr Jerry Cantt, and other Shriners executives, views were exchanged with the President of the Republic on the basis of the common vision for the establishment of Cyprus as a regional examination centre for the Shriners Hospitals for Children, but mainly as a surgery and treatment centre, the first in Europe.

President Christodoulides was informed about the work and activities of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, which have signed a cooperation agreement with the State Health Services Organisation (SHSO). In the framework of this cooperation, three specialised surgical procedures are being performed for the first time at Archbishop Makarios III Hospital in Cyprus by the doctors of Shriners hospitals, in collaboration with Cypriot doctors.

In this framework, the President of the Republic and the Shriners officials discussed the possibility of extending the cooperation agreement so that, at a later stage, the surgeries on children from our wider region would not be performed in the Shriners Hospitals in the USA, but in Cyprus. Shriners’ representatives offered to return with concrete data in order to discuss the needs that should be covered and to examine the possibility the Republic of Cyprus to cover part of the cost of transportation and hospitality of the children and their family members.

In the last 42 years, four thousand children from Cyprus have travelled to the USA for free surgeries by doctors of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, with the help of the George & Thelma Paraskevaides Foundation, while more than 18 thousand children have been examined, free of charge, during the annual visits of the medical teams to Cyprus.

The President of the Republic thanked the delegation of Shriners Hospitals for Children and the Paraskevaides Foundation, and expressed the readiness of the state to support the cooperation of Shriners with SHSO in order for Cyprus to become the European regional centre for Shriners. Shriners International, one of the largest charitable organisations since its foundation in 1872, has set as its goal the provision of the best possible medical support, free of charge, to children up to the age of 18 with special orthopaedic conditions and burns. In its 150 years of operation, it has created a unique system of medical care which includes 22 specialised hospitals in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

(GS)