The Vatican announced the launch of Pope Francis’ World Children’s Alliance, which will enable one million treatments over three years through a new initiative linking top hospitals around the world, including the Vatican’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome.
From Vatican News
The goal is to provide medical care to one million children over the next three years.
This is the mission of the Pontifical Global Alliance for Child Health, a new international network for child health care and humanitarian aid.
The effort is being spearheaded by the U.S.-based nonprofit Patrons of Children’s Hospitals of the World, which was mandated by the Pope on May 11 to lead the effort after being proposed by Mariella Enoch.
Children are the seeds of the future
“Children are the seeds of our future. Together with children, we can build a new world.”
These words were spoken during an audience with Pope Francis, welcoming the promoters and partners of this initiative.
The Alliance has two main objectives: first, to build a worldwide network for children, a true humanitarian community coordinated by the World Children’s Day Organizing Committee, led by Fathers Enzo Fortunato and Aldo Cagnoli.
The second goal is to create a dedicated network to provide healthcare to children around the world and support healthcare workers on the ground, because as Pope Francis has emphasized, “there are incurable diseases, but there are no incurable children”.
Meeting unmet medical needs
The initiative will operate using a “hub and spoke” system.
The “hubs” are centers of medical excellence around the world, providing expertise and care to “spokes,” smaller medical facilities in underserved areas where medical needs are not being met.
The connection between the hub and spokes will be facilitated by a multilingual digital platform created by Almaviva and Salesforce and integrated with telehealth services provided by Teladoc Health.
Bambino Gesu: the first hub of the project
The first hub will be the Vatican’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, also known as the “Papal Hospital.”
These hubs provide know-how on child care and technical support to the spoke doctors and nurses who are responsible for identifying urgent paediatric cases and collecting the necessary medical and administrative documentation.
This information is sent to the hub and appropriate medical solutions are provided.
The spokes network will be coordinated by Medici con l’Africa Cuamm and PIME (Pontifical Society for Foreign Missions).
The strength of fragility
During the audience, Father Fortunato and Aldo Cagnoli expressed their gratitude to the Pope.
“One of the challenges facing the Committee on World Children’s Day is to put children’s vulnerability at the centre and transform it into a strength for a better world,” they suggested.
Hundreds of thousands of children need medical care
“There are countless children around the world who are in dire need of medical care,” said Fabrizio Arresi Bentivoglio, Patron President of the World Children’s Hospital.
“My thoughts are with the children affected by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and those who suffer other human rights violations and natural disasters.
“There are governments, the UN, WHO, various foundations and other organisations responding to emergencies that get global attention, but there are hundreds of thousands of children in less visible areas,” he stressed, “who need ongoing support and lack the protection mechanisms they so desperately need.”
“These are the children we want to help first,” he insisted.
Organizations involved in this effort
The World Children’s Hospital Trust is the American organization behind the alliance, responsible for raising awareness, fundraising and coordinating the global pediatric care network.
The group also oversees agreements between the hub and spokes, identifies new collaboration opportunities and works to expand the project by building relationships with partner organizations.
The audience with Pope Francis was attended by members of the World Patronage of Children’s Hospitals Board of Directors, as well as representatives of other involved organizations, including Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, Almaviva, Teladoc Health, Medici con la Africa Quam, PIME, and Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington.
