Healthcare of Excellence in Africa

At EMERGENCY’s initiative, the ANME (African Network of Medical Excellence) was established in 2009 with the aim of promoting the construction of medical centres of excellence in Africa, based on the model of the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery.

The gratuitousness and excellence of care are the foundations of the health care model that ANME members intend to implement in their countries.

Free healthcare is the essential prerequisite for anyone who needs treatment immediately.

Excellence guarantees high clinical standards for individual patients and promotes the training of qualified healthcare professionals, research development and local healthcare systems.

In February 2010, EMERGENCY and the Sudanese Ministry of Health organised a regional meeting with ministers and health authorities in 11 African countries in Khartoum to strengthen collaboration between countries participating in the World Health Network (ANME). The meeting produced this common appeal to the international community:

We, Ministers of Health and representatives of the Health Authorities of: Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, attending the first Annual Conference of the African Network of Medical Excellence, jointly organized in Khartoum, Sudan, by the National Ministry of Health of Sudan and the international NGO EMERGENCY,

Reaffirming the principle that health care is a basic right of every individual, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

Recalling the principles of Equality, Quality and Social responsibility stated in the Manifesto for a Human Rights Based Medicine, calling for the delivery of high quality and free of charge health care for all;

Acknowledging the urgent need of establishing centres of excellence in Africa to provide high standards of medical treatment through secondary and tertiary facilities, thus strenghtening disease prevention and primary health care delivery;

Considering the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery, established by EMERGENCY in cooperation with MOH of Sudan in Khartoum, as a replicable model in all our countries to provide qualified care to our citizens and proper training to medical and non medical professionals;

We commit to improve regional cooperation by establishing the African Network of Medical Excellence (ANME) in different medical specialities in order to strenghten our Health Systems at national and regional level.

We jointly appeal to the international donors community to support us and contribute to the successful implementation of this innovative multi-disciplinary project by providing human and financial resources.

Thurday, February 11th 2010 – Khartoum, Sudan. On behalf of the Ministries of Health of: Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda.