The signing ceremony was witnessed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son, Vice Chairwoman of the Presidential Office Phan Thi Kim Oanh, and British Prime Minister's Trade Envoy.
According to the agreement, in the next five years, Vietnam Airlines will transport FTW’s doctors and medical experts to provide specialist training for Vietnamese health workers to perform free surgery on children with facial deformities and conduct charity programs across the country. In addition, the airlines will transport experts around the globe to attend WAAM Satellite Conference Vietnam to be held in Vietnam in 2024.
With the aim to bring sustainable values to the society, Vietnam Airlines, FTW, and WAAM committed themselves to providing training programs to enhance medical workers’ professionalism, fostering technology transfer, and giving assistance and medical equipment to partners in Vietnam, contributing to bringing smiles to children with facial deformities and building a better and humane society.
Vietnam Airlines CEO Le Hong Ha said that, this three-party cooperation program’s long-term goal is to enable Vietnamese doctors to enhance their professional competence, thus saving more unlucky people.
“Through this cooperation, Vietnam Airlines wants to affirm its role in connecting Vietnam and the U.K. in general and the healthcare sectors of the two sides in particular, thereby strengthening friendship and long-term cooperation between the two countries,” Mr. Ha added.
For her part, FTW CEO Katrin Kandel said that thousands of children in Vietnam urgently need surgery to address physical abnormalities in their heads and necks. With the support of Vietnam Airlines and WAAM, FTW CEO said that Vietnamese doctors could be trained to handle such challenging surgeries. She believed that through FTW’s scholarship programs in the U.K., the U.S., and Australia, Vietnamese doctors would bring miracles to children across the country.
As reported, since 2015, Vietnam Airlines has provided annual support for FTW’s charity activities in Vietnam in healthcare. In 2019, the airlines signed a five-party MOU on cooperation with units, including such FTW’s partners in Vietnam as Military Central Hospital 108, Vietnam-German Friendship Hospital, and Hong Ngoc General Hospital with the aim to train additional 140 doctors and perform 40,000 surgeries for children with deformities in the next five years. The agreement marked its effort in carrying out Corporate Social Responsibility activities.
Vietnam Airlines has also cooperated with Operation Smile to transport doctors to provide free surgery for children with cleft lip, cleft palate, and maxillofacial deformities and given financial assistance to children’s heart surgery within the Vietnam Heart Program.
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- FTW is the U.K.’s health charity organization that calls on experienced surgeons from the world’s leading organizations to participate in craniofacial surgery programs for children in countries, including Vietnam. It desires to approach patients who experience complex craniofacial deformities and cannot afford adequate medical care. In addition, the organization also focuses on training local doctors through seminars, scholarship/distance training programs.
- WAAM is a non-profit alliance of airway management members in the world. It connects airway management associations, sponsors, training centers, and charity foundations; organize educational activities and programs; host a meeting with delegates from 71 countries around the world.
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Translated by Tran Hoai