A better world
 |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |
 |
In February 2010, SickKids signed an agreement to provide advisory services for the development of a new children’s hospital in Qatar. The initiative was the result of years of work and was widely praised. The Toronto Star said in an editorial that the agreement is a credit to SickKids, “but also a reminder to other centres of excellence in Canada that they need to market themselves abroad. For SickKids, its expertise was a key selling point, but such expertise doesn't just sell itself. It requires marketing know-how, persistence, and vision.”
2009-2010 was a busy year of global activity at SickKids International with hundreds of trainees coming to Toronto from all over the world, and SickKids staff going overseas to share their expertise.
“The mission of SickKids International is to collaborate with national and global partners to improve the health of children worldwide through education, clinical and research initiatives,” says Cathy Séguin, Vice-President, International Affairs. “We develop partnerships, provide advisory services and engage in humanitarian work; everything we do contributes to child health and raises awareness of the need to sustain paediatric work in Canada and throughout the world.”
The Global Child Health Program is SickKids’ contribution towards achieving the United Nations Millennium Goal of reduced child mortality. The program received $2.4 million in November from the Canadian International Development Agency and will match a contribution by SickKids Foundation’s HealthyKids International for a three-year project delivering education to health-care workers in Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
No Boundaries, a team of skilled professionals established in 1999, entered into a long-term agreement with health-care partners in Ethiopia in 2009. The group provides such services as medical assessments, clinical care, surgical and dental interventions, and educational collaboration with local staff.
The International Learner Program was also established in 2009. Its goal is to provide observation or practice experiences for international nurses and allied health professionals. In the first year, 11 registered nurses, one psychologist and one social worker received training under the program. They came from Singapore, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
The Program for Global Paediatric Research at SickKids partnered with a centre in the Republic of Benin to establish the Global SickleCell Disease Network, and it established the first retinoblastoma world registry.
At home and abroad, patient care, research and learning combine to sustain the SickKids vision for Healthier Children. A Better World.