Great Britons: The best of Health

Our Charge d’Affaires a.i. Esther Blythe has been impressed with the city and county of Arad and the work done there by Dr Graham Giles. Read her account below.

‘Last week I met some amazing people in Arad County. We were celebrating the successful first stage of their project to bring equipment and expertise from the British National Health Service to Arad hospitals, supporting swift diagnosis and effective treatment for people all over the county. It all starts with the donation of a suite of digital x-ray equipment from a hospital in Poole, on the south coast of England, to the local hospital in Sebis, Arad County. The equipment has been installed and calibrated, and will be ready for use by specially trained Sebis Hospital staff in the near future with tailor-made software.’

‘This will bring enormous benefits to the local community. But the vision goes way beyond that. More radiology suites will be transferred to hospitals across the county, and a digital network will be set up to allow medical professionals in hospitals, clinics, prison medical wings and doctors’ surgeries to share, analyse and discuss radiological images, pooling expertise and connecting the healthcare community in real time. The project is called “Highways of Health”, and it is possible because Romania has among the fastest internet speeds in the world. There is no doubt that it will save lives.’

‘This achievement owes a great deal to many people in Arad and in the UK healthcare system. Nicolae Iotcu, the President of Arad County Council and his team, have been closely involved. But the man who is driving the project, whose vision it represents, is a British doctor called Graham Giles. Dr Giles’s involvement with Romania goes a long way back; he first worked here in the final decade of communism (his support for prisoners of conscience led the Ceausescu government to give him a lifetime ban on entering the country). In 1991 he founded the non-profit organisation “Europe to Europe” and its Romanian sister-charity “Europa pentru Europa” with a mission to help prisoners, people with disabilities and abandoned children in Romania, and was awarded with the status of Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2003 in recognition of his achievements.’

‘Now through Europa pentru Europa, he is designing and executing a whole raft of projects in Arad County aimed at helping the disadvantaged, through the healthcare system, in prisons and through work to prevent the trafficking of human beings. On the day I met him in Arad, Dr Giles was also opening a summer school for talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and engaging local officials on the possibilities for further developing Arad’s energy and transport infrastructure for the benefit of local people. Dr Giles has done a huge amount to bring people from the UK and Romania together.’

‘The Highways of Health project is a wonderful example of what British and Romanian healthcare professionals can achieve together. Last week I also met Nicolae Banicioiu, the Health Minister, and Eugen Teodorovici, the EU Funds Minister, who told me about their initiative to attract specialised paediatric heart surgeons from the UK and elsewhere in Europe to Romania for professional attachments to share their expertise. So I hope we will be seeing even more Great Britons contributing to healthcare in Romania in future.’