Caminos Cruzados and GNU Solidario join forces in healthcare for Gambia with GNU Health

We’re very happy to announce that “Caminos cruzados”, a Spanish non-for-profit organization, has signed an agreement with GNU Solidario to implement GNU Health in health institutions from Gambia.

María Eugenia Ramos, president of the organization traveled to Gran Canaria to meet with Luis Falcón, president of GNU Solidario to formalize the agreement and to plan the next actions in the Gambia.

During these three days we went through the main functionality of the GNU Health HMIS, with focus in the areas of Social Medicine, Primary Care and Public Health.

Classroom before the renovation (source: Caminos Cruzados)

Caminos Cruzados and GNU Solidario share the goals of health and education are indivisible entities. In fact education is health, and there is no healthy person or society without education.

Current state of some classrooms after renovation process (Source: Caminos Cruzados)

In the area of health, the NGO collaborates with the Ndungu Kebbeh health center, that takes care of a population around 8000 people, in addition to the surrounding villages.

Ndungu Kebbeh health center (Source: Caminos Cruzados)

We are very excited about this agreement, and can’t wait to start collaborating with Caminos Cruzados and the local team in Gambia to implement GNU Health in the different Health institutions. GNU Health will definitely help optimizing the internal processes and resources in the health institutions, and most importantly, will contribute to optimize the health promotion and disease prevention programs for the betterment of their people.

Resources:

Caminos Cruzados: http://www.caminoscruzados.org

GNU Solidario: https://www.gnusolidario.org

GNU Health: https://www.gnuhealth.org

The importance of Health Informatics in Kenya – Cirugía Solidaria and GNU Health

The team from Cirugía Solidaria has completed another successful medical and surgical campaign in the African continent, using GNU Health.

The team from Cirugía Solidaria has completed another successful campaign in the African continent.

Health professionals from Maragua hospital and Cirugía Solidaria with GNU Health Hospital Management System training session

The project took place in the hospital of Maragua, in Muranga county, Kenya. Dr. Victor López, from Cirugía Solidaria, describes the experiences during the seven day mission:

“In our latest project in Maragua, Kenya, we had 406 patient evaluations, and 142 of these patients underwent surgery. Some relevant information on the surgical procedures were 32 pediatric surgeries, 22 goiter, 11 cervical masses and 13 oncological surgeries. In addition, we detected 36 patients with cancer that were referred to the Kenya National Cancer Registry for treatment and followup.”

The mission checklist: In these type of projects, there are quite a bit of preparation that starts at home, in Spain, before taking the airplane to the final destination. In addition to the medical and surgical infrastructure, since the partnership with GNU Solidario, medical informatics components are now part of every mission from Cirugía Solidaria. For instance, the GNUHealth Hospital Management system instance is created, with the functionality and localization to meet the health institution needs and country needs. Network routers, laptops, batteries, backup devices…. everything has do be tested thoroughly in different contexts, because once you arrive to destination, there might not be Internet available.

Surgical training: In addition to the medical assistance and surgical procedures, Cirugía Solidaria also takes the Dr López noted, in addition, 11 health professionals have participated in training sessions related to surgery.

The role of GNUHealth: Dr. López went on highlighting the importance of GNUHealth. We want to highlight the GNU Health Hospital Management System in the our medical and surgical assistance. We have recorded all the patients, the evaluations and the details of the surgical procedures. In addition, we have addressed notes and details so we can followup when we return to the center. Moreover, GNU Health has been managed 100% by the health professionals from Kenya, they’ve have felt fully integrated in the initiative, being now part of the team. We are very grateful to the GNUHealth community for the enormous task they do to improve the assistance in countries and places that need it most.

We’d like to remark the importance of Dr. Lopez statement “GNU Health has been managed 100% by the health professionals from Kenya“. This is key, because not only the mission is very valuable to help those that need it most (medical and surgical), but it also generates local capacity and sustainable projects, for the betterment of our societies.

We are very grateful to Cirugía Solidaria and excited to keep on working side-by-side in upcoming projects, building local capacity and delivering a much needed universal healthcare. By looking at the statistics from the latest campaign, those numbers reflect lives that have been saved by anonymous heroes that leave their daily work aside to assist the underprivileged anywhere around the world.

Finally, some technical details for those of us who understand that Free/Libre software and open science are key for freedom, privacy and equity in healthcare: GNUHealth instance was installed on a Debian GNU/Linux 12 server, with GNU Health Hospital Information Management System component 4.2, Tryton 6.0 and PostgreSQL 15. Our gratitude to these fabulous pieces of software, that make GH a reality today.

Fundación La Vicuña joins GNU Health

GNU Solidario and the Spanish NGO Fundación La Vicuña ORL have signed a cooperation agreement to promote and implement the Health and Hospital Management component from GNUHealth in Africa and Spain

On Thursday, Feb 23rd, 2023, GNU Solidario and the Spanish NGO Fundación La Vicuña ORL have signed a cooperation agreement to promote and implement the Health and Hospital Management component from GNUHealth in those areas and institutions where Fundación La Vicuña has activities, mainly Spain and countries in Africa.

Fundación La Vicuña is a non-profit organization founded 15 years ago by a group of physicians, mostly ear, nose and throat specialists in Cadiz, Spain.

GNU Solidario and Fundacion La Vicuña share the goal of improving the lives of the underprivileged, through Social Medicine and universal access to healthcare. GNU Health will be a very valuable tool to assess the socioeconomic determinants of health and to minimize the impact in the vulnerable population, both in Spain and in the African continent. GNU Health will improve the management of health institutions and the daily medical practice where Fundación La Vicuña has missions. Patient evaluations, medical records, prescriptions, laboratory, surgeries and inpatient/hospitalization will be some of the areas that will benefit from GNU Health HMIS.

Casimiro García, president and founder of Fundación La Vicuña and Luis Falcón, founder and president of GNU Solidario, formalized the cooperation agreement this Thursday. In the coming weeks, GNU Solidario will train the team from Fnd. La Vicuña in the use of GNUHealth, and a development environment will be rolled out.

We are thrilled and looking forward to working hand in hand with Fundación la Vicuña, to put into practice the philosophy of open science and Libre software in healthcare for the betterment of our societies, delivering Social Medicine and dignity to those who need it most.

For more information you can visit Fundación la Vicuña homepage (in Spanish): http://www.fundacionlavicuna.org/