Transplant centre hooks up to US hospital

CYPRIOT children being treated at the Paraskevaidion Surgical and Transplant Centre will now be able to benefit from a new “telemedicine” link-up with the Shriners Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The link-up was officially inaugurated at a ceremony last night. At both the Paraskevaidion Centre and the Springfield hospital, there are now VidiMedix 1000 workstations which will allow better communications and follow-up care of patients by doctors at the other end. Not only are doctors now able to communicate with live video and audio, but images such as X-Rays and photographs can also be transmitted. More features are expected to be developed in the future.

The costs of the system, which the Centre’s Nassos Athanasiou told The Cyprus Mail were around $300,000, are being paid for by a grant from the Paraskevaides Foundation.

The system was tested on February 18, when the Shriners Hospital Chief of Staff, Dr David M Drvaric, conducted a telemedicine examination of a seven- year-old patient in Cyprus with the help of Dr Costas Christodoulakis.

The Shriners Hospital’s relationship with Cyprus began in 1979, when two Cypriot children suffering from orthopaedic deformities were taken to the Springfield Hospital under the sponsorship of a Cypriot couple living in Springfield. Since 1983, medical staff from the hospital have visited Cyprus every year. Last year, doctors saw 370 child patients at the Paraskevaidion Centre, while around 75 were sent to Springfield for treatment.

The Paraskevaides Foundation was established in 1980 to help Cypriot children obtain overseas healthcare not available in Cyprus. It also awards scholarships for study and has interests in preserving traditional Cypriot Culture and architecture.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.