57357’s new staff learning and development program was launched on January 20, 2014. Through this program, some 2000 workers and healthcare professionals of three 57357 affiliated institutions CCHE, CCHF, and AFNCI will be receiving benchmark practical academic knowledge via the blended and targeted training approach. This will result in improved delivery of healthcare services, new possibilities for career enhancement, and the birth of a new generation of healthcare professionals positively impacting this industry as a whole. “Blended training”, is a form of knowledge acquisition which is carried out through E-learning and workshops led by facilitators.

A new Learning Management System (LMS) has been implemented to ensure ease of use and accessibility to hundreds of E-learning courses. The new LMS has been installed with a public IP so employees can access training from outside work.

Training needs assessment has been carried out for the three affiliates’ employees to include core competencies courses (3) to be taken by all staff, 2 managerial courses for staff at the managerial level, and 3 functional courses specific to each and every department. All core and managerial courses have been uploaded on the LMS. In the course of the coming 6 months, functional courses will be uploaded according to department needs to some 1500 employees

The first core competencies course to be taken by all staff dealt with communication skills.  75% of all staff passed the course representing 1700 employees from the Hospital and the Foundation.  A negative feedback from the pilot group taking the second course compelled the LMS committee to resort to another provider.  The second offered core course deals with customer service and will be available for all staff in the coming week.

Recently, the L&D department is developing a document management system that will ensure that documents and records are up to date, accurate, accessible and secured.

Deadlines were impacted on several occasions due to internal and external variables. But by resolving the different unpredictable issues, L&D has developed the skills needed to improve its services

It is customary at 57357 to revive the memory of the October War Victory and honor its heroes. But this year, this  day was no ordinary one, for we were celebrating two occasions: the 41^ST anniversary of the October war victory and the advent of Eid El Adha. The 57357 foundation organized a special celebration through which the children would be familiarized with the events of a Grand National epic and rejoice over the up-coming of the Eid.

All through the day, 57357’s children with cancer were able to get a feel of the spirit of the October 1973 war that they have not seen. They listened to numerous stories of courage, bravery, and self sacrifice from the veterans. The latter were happy to visit with our little fighters, to give them hope and encouragement and an example to follow in their fight for cure. The children too had their share in story telling; they exposed their own battles against the disease and how they overcome it. Attending the celebration were representatives of different army divisions and a number of public figures.

Among the highlights of the event were the words of 57357’s board of trustees chairman, Dr. Amr Ezzat Salama, and of the Hospital’s, Dr Sherif abou El Naga. Dr. Salama acknowledged the War Heroes and the family of the late Egyptian president, Anwar El Sadat. He also greeted all the representatives of the different army and ministry of interior divisions. “Each year we commemorate the 73 war which demonstrated Egypt’s might and the importance of its army…. Today we also want to acknowledge Egypt’s institutions which are aware of their responsibilities towards building the new Egypt… among these institutions is Hospital 57357 which still pursues to achieve ambitious plans for Egypt and its children.” declare Dr. Salama

Addressing the war veterans, Dr Abou El Naga said “if it were not for you and the victory you achieved, Egypt would not have had any accomplishments and we would not have been present today in this auditorium”. Briefing the audience about the Hospital’s developments, he stated that the average over-all survival rate has reached 72% and vowed that it would reach 85% in three years time. He reminded them that all patients receive comprehensive quality care entirely free of charge and that the expensive treatment bill is paid by the donors from different walks of life, rich or poor, Christians or Muslims, young or old.” This auditorium where we are holding our celebration is a donation from the ministry of Interior” reveals Abou El Naga. He adds that the army has recently sponsored the renovation of the radiology department with five million Egyptian pounds. He also reveals that the land required for the up-coming 57357 capacity expansion, including the 300 bed tower, the health Sciences training academy, and the out-patient/radiology and proton therapy buildings, was also a donation from the government. Dr. Abou El naga highlighted the role of Egypt Cancer Network in the US in rallying Egyptian Americans and others around the cause of cancer patients in Egypt and in sponsoring the future expansion

I met Abdel Rahman at the dentist clinic at 57357. There are three dentist clinics at the Hospital to cater to one of the most typical side effects of the chemotherapy treatment:  the development of teeth and gums problems. What mostly attracted my attention is the fact that Abdel Rahman was at ease and relaxed on the dentist chair. I was touched by the way his dentist, Dr. Mohamed Adly was gently  and patiently treating  his problem. Talking to Abdel Rahman later, I learn from him how much he loves his dentist whom he considers his friend!

Besides being vulnerable to teeth problems because of the treatment, Abdel Rahman who is three years old, has never used a toothbrush and was totally ignorant of basic teeth hygiene. His friend the dentist offered him his first toothbrush and taught him how to clean his teeth religiously three times a day. Since then, Abdel Rahman is taking good care of his teeth.

I learn from Abdel Rahman’s physician, Dr. Iman Attia , that he suffers from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), that his prognosis is good , and that he is responding well to the treatment. Abdel Rahman has gone through 61 weeks of chemotherapy treatment out of a total of 146.

Abdel Rahman has still a long way to go. But I am comforted to know that all through this journey, comprehensive care which encompasses cancer treatment is being offered to him to maximize his chances of a better future.

Why would the Vice President of a world renowned health informatics solutions company , fully dressed in a dark suit agree to get a bucket of water dumped on his head, then proceed to jump into a pool shouting: Donate to 57357?

The answer to this question lies in the special relationship between Cerner and 57357. It also lies with  Mike Pomerance himself,  the Vice President in question, whose humanitarianism and friendship with 57357 is an example to us all.

One of the milestones in the positioning of the  Children’s cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (CCHE) as a leading international comprehensive pediatric cancer center is its application of the latest health informatics system which allows it to become a fully digital hospital. This is a pioneering initiative in the healthcare field in the Middle East; one that is setting a precedent and a benchmark for the delivery of quality healthcare. Thanks to its strong partnership with Cerner, the hospital was fortunate to benefit from the services of a top global supplier of intelligent healthcare information technology (HIT) solutions. Confident in 57357’s optimal use of its (HIT ) system, Cerner under the command of Pomerance, has recently committed to upgrade its presently applied  system at the Hospital to its latest 2015 version. The system upgrade is taking place along with its application in some Hospitals in the U.S. The new system is more user-friendly, more speedy, and will guarantee a smooth integration of the ERP process with other system processes enabling more efficient planning and management of Hospital resources.

With Mike Pomerance as  Managing Director for the Middle East, the relationship with 57357 transcends the mere business collaboration to also include the humanitarian dimension. Cerner has increased its charitable actions for the benefit of 57357’s children: In June, Cerner   management and employees made animportant donation to the 57357 Foundation. In July, to reach out to 57357’s children with cancer in a special way, Cerner organized a competition for them, inviting them to create the most beautiful handmade greeting cards. It presented gifts to the winners and sent these cards to its clients.

As I watched the infamous video with the combination of the bucket and Mike Pomerance, I cannot but thank God for the numerous friends and partners 57357 is blessed with and their diverse ideas to rally the world around it!

Quoting from Wikipedia: The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of the disease  and encourage donations to research. It went viral on social media during July–August 2014.

In anticipation of the 6^th of October celebrations, on Sept. 25, 2014, Hospital 57357 organized a visit to the new Suez Canal project for 50 of its recovered patients and a number of foundations and hospital staff and management.  Taking part in the trip were war veterans, Major General Tolba Radwan, the famous “Tabet El Shagara” battle hero, Major Gen.  Abou Bakr Hamed, war heroes, Mostafa El Hamawy, Adel Mostafa , and a number of public figures. Also present were Dr. Mohamed Gemeaa, El Azhar delegate and Father Bolous Sourour, the Coptic Church representative as well as 57357’s  Board of trustees President,Dr. Amr Ezzat Salama, 57357 Foundation’s Secretary General, Dr. Ashraf Saad Zaghloul The visitors were welcomed by Major General Mohamed El Shahat, leader of the Second field Army and his Assistant, General Adel El Ghadban.

Hospital 57357 is no less important than the new Suez Canal development project, said Gen Adel El Ghadban, Assistant Head of the Second field Army. In his address to 57357’s children during their visit to the digging site, El Ghadban affirms that the idea of soliciting donations from all Egyptians for the establishment of the Hospital was inspiring for a lot of endeavors among which the new Suez Canal project. He adds that Hospital 57357 is the embodiment of charitable giving, as people rallied their efforts around it to turn it into a great achievement. Today, the great Egyptian People are once again demonstrating great generosity by rallying around the Suez Canal project.

“The purpose of the project is not only to dig a new passage but to develop the entire canal area; the new 35 km long passage way will allow more and bigger ships to cross on parallel sides alongside a number of touristic and urban projects for the whole area,” explains El Ghadban

57357’s visit to the new Suez Canal project sends the following message to the world: the people and the Army are joining forces….The people of Egypt are keen on supporting national projects and on rallying around them. This visit to a victorious  battle site was a source of encouragement to the children and a vivid example of willpower, and hope in defeating cancer.

Memorable quotes from the visit:

Major General Mohamed El Shahat to the children: Army men are always ready to sacrifice their lives for Egypt

Major General Adel Ghadban:  Egyptians’ generosity was behind 57357’s success and once again behind the Suez canal Project

Dr. Mohamed Gemea: the children’s visit to the project gives them hope, determination and the ability to challenge the disease.

Father Bolous Sourour: today I feel that Egypt is empowered…the project is a new mandate from the people to the President

Patient Abdel Rahman Ashraf: I heard a great deal about the Suez Canal project, I am happy I visited the project site and met with our army heroes. I am privileged to have seen the workers on site in the desert…I will tell all my friends and encourage them to come and visit this place.

Patient Jana : Today I heard many stories about October Heroes…..I saw the places where they fought and won battles….Now I know how much they do to ensure Egypt’s protection….I love the army and I love El Sissy.

Patient Ahmed: they call us heroes because we endure the pain and we overcome the illness….still I want to become an army hero just as those we met today for the sake of protecting Egypt.

The first time I laid my eyes on her was in the ground floor play room of the out-patient clinics. Her mother had stretched her on her tummy on a table near the door, away from the other children. Maryam, a three year old girl with a frail little body, was busy building a tower with lego blocks. I wandered how she could be setting the blocks one on top of each other with such agility while being in such an uncomfortable position. As I came closer to her, I discovered she was almost paralyzed from the waist down to her tiny feet which were lifeless and turned sideways.  She seemed to draw all the force and agility she needed from her two tiny hands and she did that so well!

Seeing a concerned and questioning expression on my face, her mother shared with me the details of Maryam’s case. Maryam was admitted to the hospital last May and diagnosed with a large tumor in her spinal cord. Although the tumor was successfully removed and she is now completely free from the disease, Maryam has a long way to go and a lot of suffering to endure before we can be able to predict a brighter future for her. Unfortunately, physicians in her home town failed to detect the cancer early enough before it pressed on her spinal cord and affected her motor skills.

Maryam’s troubles in fact started when she was a year and a half old baby.  At the time, she had not started to walk but nobody suspected this was a result of the pressure of the tumor on her legs. This pressure also was responsible for a deviation in her spinal cord and atrophy in one of her lungs. Mom comes a long way from their home town for her daughter’s regular follow-up leaving behind two other children still in their schooling age.  As I became more and more concerned about Maryam’s fate, wondering if she would ever recover fully from this trauma, I was at least comforted to find out that 57357 was offering Maryam all the possible required support and quality care in order to improve her condition  and alleviate her life-long suffering. As such, she is scheduled for physiotherapy three times a week, she is offered a therapeutic belt around her waist to support her back, and a year from now, she will be scheduled for a complex surgery to rectify the deviated spinal cord.

Keep Maryam and her family in your prayers every day, she needs all your compassion and support!

Without the firm belief of U.S. based ECN’s visionary supporters in the worthiness and inevitability of 57357’s future expansion project, the choice of RTKL, the renowned global architectural firm carrying out 57357’s future expansion design, would not have been possible. Indeed, 57357’s donors in the U.S. who are mostly Egyptian American immigrants and who continue to carry the love of Egypt in their hearts, are aware that 57357 is not merely a charitable state of the art healthcare institution but a symbol of change in a large variety of domains ; a platform from which the entire nation could be projected into the next century. They know that all components of this expansion project would have to integrate the most up to date technology and processes until 2030. These components include a 300 bed tower, an advanced research center, a health sciences training Academy, the introduction of a new treatment technology, the proton therapy and a hospice care facility.

On their recent visit to Cairo in mid-august, RTKL focused on three main concerns, the most important of  being the necessity to launch the construction of three main buildings :

1. The Outpatient / Day- care/ Triage/ Radiotherapy/ building,

2. The / Research/ Foundation/ administration/ temporary academy/ smart structure premises,

3. The Hospice care facility.

The outpatient building is to cater to three times the capacity of the actual one . The radiotherapy area would be equipped with three linear accelerators and an adjacent space would be prepared to accommodate the proton therapy installation.

The “Smart” building  is labeled as such because it would offer the capability of  being multi-functional and thus house a large variety of Hospital/ Foundation/ Academy departments at any point in time. In the beginning, this building will house some of the administrative departments of the Hospital such as purchasing, accounting…etc. it will also be the home of the foundation, the IT department, the Research Center, and temporarily the Academy

As for the Hospice care, the RTKL delegation visited a potential site in the vicinity of the hospital that could accommodate this highly needed service.

With the operation of these buildings, space is liberated within 57357’s actual premises to increase its in-patients capacity by 30% in the interim period until it launches and completes another major new building which is the 300bed in-patient tower.

The second concern of the delegation was to discuss the eventuality of equipping all the expansion facilities with the cutting -edge Hospital technologies. These include the latest devices for spotting the location of patients and staff alike anywhere on premises as well as those ensuring maximum safety and security for patients, visitors, and resources. Discussions also included the optimal utilization of fiber optics in the infrastructure to ensure maximum integration of communication and data sources processes for a hospital in operation in 2030.

The third topic of concern was the choice of energy mix that would ensure real savings in energy costs as well as maximum utilization of renewable energies and protection of the environment. The preferred mix is still so far a combination of solar and natural gaz.

“We have already completed the pre-design phase and we are about to end the concept design phase” reveals Eng. Hisham Dinana, VP of Solving EFESO Egypt, who acts as the project manager on behalf of 57357.

I met them in the play room near the out-patient clinics. At first it was his mother’s beautiful smile that drew my attention. She was sitting in one corner of the play room waiting patiently as her seven year old was completely absorbed in a computer game with four of his peers. I asked her if it was alright for her to tell me her story. She opened her heart to me, convinced that it was her duty to share her experience and her own way of expressing gratitude to God and to all the Hospital staff. Mohamed Ahmed Ali , her younger son was born 9 years after his elder brother. He was a normal healthy baby up until the age of three months when she started noticing that he was losing weight. At six months coincidently with the start of teething, he vomited frequently and exhibited great fatigue. Thank God for his pediatrician, who insisted on making tests and scans that revealed he had liver cancer. At this point, I stop her, astonished that babies as old as six months could be struck with liver cancer. She meant to reassure me and reassure herself : Thank God, Mohamed is well, we just come to the Hospital for follow-up. We have come a long way since he was first diagnosed. But God was with me every step of the way, God was even ahead of me every step of the way! Mohamed is blessed to be diagnosed in 2007, six months after the Hospital was opened. He received pre-surgery chemotherapy and when the time came for his surgery, thank God the Hospital operation theaters were being launched. His surgery which lasted 9 hours was successful and the totality of the tumor was removed. When Mohamed was two years old , he had completed his treatment. We now come for follow-up every three to five months. In the first year following his recovery, we would come practically every month. When I had to take taxis to bring him to the Hospital, taxi drivers would refuse to let me pay. I was blessed with a wonderful team of physicians and healthcare professionals who took excellent care of Mohamed. Now, if you see Mohamed, you would never suspect he was sick with liver cancer. He is an active, healthy looking seven year old boy who tells me that he loves coming to the hospital to play with the other children. He also tells me that he dreams of becoming an army officer. His mother reveals to me that Mohamed has no recollection of the time he was sick with cancer. If God allowed us to go peacefully through this ordeal, he will never forsake us. In fact, casinoin.us God was always ahead of us , making things easier for both of us. I am confident that he has a great future in store for Mohamed! I chatted with Dr. Lobna, Mohamed’s physician about his condition: this is a rare type of cancer in children, hepatoblastoma, it mostly occurs in infants up to two years old. Mohamed needed a very complicated surgery which was handled with remarkable success by his surgeon, Dr. Alaa Younes. Seeing Mohamed now, you would never suspect the critical condition he was in when he was first admitted to the Hospital. Thank God! He is completely cured, and all of his ordeal is behind us now.

 Beit El Eila pays a special visit to 57357.

Under the patronage of El Azhar Sheikh, and The Coptic Orthodox PopeTawadros, more than 60 Christian and Muslim religious leaders, members of Beit El Eila (the Family Home) visited for the first time 57357’s children with cancer on Sept. 2, 2014.

The large group gathered first at the auditorium where they were welcomed by the Hospital GM for Research, strategy and Outreach. Coordinated by Mr. Selim Fouad Wasef, a representative of the Episcopal Church, the visit was an expression of the enthusiasm, compassion, interest, concern and generosity of the delegation for the 57357 endeavor. After the GM’s presentation, the amazed and enthusiastic delegation debated such important issues as succession, environmental protection and cancer prevention, sustainability and the duplication of the 57357 model nationwide. The group members spent quality time with the children for which they had prepared with great love bags full of gifts.

 “Egypt is in need of professionals such as those who set up and are operating this remarkable accomplishment,” said Sheikh Mahmoud Moussa stressing the importance of research and knowledge pursuit and application for Egypt’s progress and development. He also praised the Hospital for continuously training and enhancing the skills of its employees. He affirmed the on-going support of Beit-El-Eila to 57357.

As for father Botros Bostros, the Pope’s representative, he was apologetic for having been late to come and visit the Hospital. He congratulated the staff and administration for the success of the endeavor. Urging people to be compassionate to the most distressed, he quoted from the Bible and the Koran, verses pointing to God’s abounding mercy and his instructions to believers to be merciful to each other. “When we donate to charitable institutions such as 57357, we are following God’s teachings and we are receiving infinite blessings of peace and mercy.” said Father Botros.

“I bow down with great respect before the 57357 accomplishment” exclaims Mr. Selim Fouad Wassef, the visit coordinator. Inviting everyone to support the Hospital on its expansion and development journey, he quoted from the Bible, the verse that states that God, who initiates a good work among his people, will certainly stand by them for its completion.

At the end of the visit, the religious delegation presented the Hospital with a generous donation offered by the members spontaneously without prior arrangement.