Welcome to Gotland Clinic, Bahir Dar Ethiopia

Introduction

A NETWORK MODEL FOR HIGHLY SPECIALIZED MEDICAL SERVICES IN ETHIOPIA

Gotland Special Higher Clinic is set up to bring medical services in specialties, such as dental, maxillofacial surgery, ear nose and throat and women’s healthcare. The first such medical service will be established in Bahir Dar region in Ethiopia.

An Ethiopian limited company is under formation, owned by Dr Samuel Assafa, Swedish citizen of Ethiopian origin, trained at the Karolinska, his maxillofacial surgery specialty obtained in Sweden. Dr Assafa is based in Bahir Dar in Northern Ethiopia. Board members – apart from Dr Assafa – Hans Forsslund, former Chief Executive Officer Public Dental Service Gothland Region.

We are Volunteers

The Team and Working Group members are volunteer clinicians, administrators and managers who have worked together to take The Gotland Clinic to what is is today in its relatively short life. The Clinic has some wonderfully talented people working for realization of the project.

Ethiopian Medical Bridge Insamlingsstiftelse

Ethiopian Medical Bridge fund-raising trust
Registered 2012-02-07 by the County Administrative Board of Stockholm. Federal identification number (Organisationsnummer): 802477-4344

The County Administrative Board is a supervisory authority for the foundations and trusts in the county and has the responsibility for registering them.

A foundation or trust is an independent capital sum which is administered permanently to satisfy a specific purpose. The foundation or trust is formed by means of a deed of gift, a will, the minutes of a board meeting or another document. A board or a trustee has the responsibility of managing the finances. For international payments IBAN: SE52 8000 0805 5600 4506 0316 BIC: SWEDSESS. Local Swedish Bankgiro: 840-0426

Call for support

ETHIOPIAN MEDICAL BRIDGE FUND-RAISING TRUST
På svenska klicka här

Anyone who wants to support the Foundation's activities in medicine and dentistry in Ethiopia is welcomed to contribute with financial support but also with practical work.

Money that accrues after this call shall be transferred to the newly formed foundation Ethiopian Medical Bridge Collection Foundation. As the website www.bahirdar.se shows, extensive work is undertaken on voluntary basis by a team of Samuel Assafa, Hans Forsslund, Björn Franzén and Lasse Ahlner. In addition, a lot of other people in the Gotland medical and dental care branches. The municipality has donated used equipment in two rounds. The first round of equipment has been sent by us in a filled container to Ethiopia and a new one is almost ready for shipment.

New borne baby with a jaw fracture

DSC_4629ss
The first patient Hans Forsslund meet on his wisit to bahirdar in december 2010. Follow this link to read more.

Follow this link to read about her one year later.

Starting point

Samuel Samuel Assafa has worked and lived for over 30 years in Sweden, the last period on Gotland, an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The business idea emerged from the possibility he had to get used equipment from the Hospital and other departments in the medical services on Gotland that was rebuilt.
Being of Ethiopian origin, he wanted to get back to serve his native country following his retirement.

The idea came up to set up a clinic in Ethiopia with medical equipment from Sweden and support from volunteer Swedish doctors. A network of medical staff, started to collect equipment to and inspect and renovate them to a good and adequate standard. A container full was shipped to Ethiopia in the autumn of 2006. Since then, he and his collaborators have worked on getting all the legal permissions and a plot to build the clinic. A starting point is all the equipment which is enough for basic medical need.

Gotlands FN-förening (association)

Gotland UN association actively supports our project since early 2011. Gotland UN association is part of the Swedish United Nations operations and associated with the Swedish United Nations Association. The association is politically and religiously independent. All activities are based on locally comitted people. They are thinking globally but acting locally and close. Gotland UN association is of great importance for our work in Ethiopia.

Equipment finaly arrived

We are happy to inform you that all the equipment we sent in 14 boxes in a full container that we shipped in November 2011 to Ethiopia has arrived in Bahir Dar. The container transport arrived 2011 Dec. 7 in Djibouti. Arrived final destination Modjo Dry port two weeks later. Cargo description 1x20' container – 14 items of used medical equipment.
We have now worked to get all papers that are demanded by the authorities. Everything is so slow and the bureaucracy is almost hopeless. On May 27 2012 the container arrived in Bahir Dar after 6 months of bureaucratic negotiations with endless writing of new documents. After a paper was submitted that was said was what was needed, we got new requirements. We were ready to give up but finally the problems was solved.

The approval from the customs took very long time because Samuel Assafa has a 5-year duty exemption on import of medical equipments and legal issues concerning medical equipment was not so strait forward as one could have expected. It was a costly time delay period while the bureaucracy was handled. There was no question on bribery and one of the answers to the delay can be the new hard routines that have been put in place to stop all bribery.

(Packing List below)