Welcome address

We welcome you to join the 14th Global Forum on Humanitarian Medicine in Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, to be virtually held in Athens from November 15-18, 2023 together with the 5th Euro-Asian Symposium on Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

The “Kalangos Foundation” and the humanitarian Association “Hearts for All Greece” are organizing the 14th Global Forum  in partnership with the World Heart Federation.

The Congress is being organized with the aim to continue to address key issues facing numerous developing countries including the shortage of financial, material and human resources, which are often aggravated by adverse economic conditions and loss of trained personnel towards richer countries, as well as, problems due to shortage of technology and lack of education.

Numerous governmental and non-governmental agencies have provided excellent humanitarian medical assistance for a large number of populations in need. Nevertheless, to present, this assistance has been “reactive” and was mainly offered as an answer to natural disasters and wars. These programmed have been certainly useful, but have only of a punctual, time-limited nature and therefore have not resulted in long capacity-building projects.

The Forum was started in 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland with the objective of becoming an international decision-taking forum to improve cooperation and assistance to the Third World in the capacity building of their health sector, and meet future and emerging challenges, with special reference to cardiovascular diseases. At the 3rd Global Forum in 2007 a Children’s International Database executive committee was formed to establish an international quality improvement collaborative for congenital heart surgery in developing countries. The 4th Global Forum was held as a regional meeting in the Dominican Republic in December 2008. The 5th Global Forum was held in Geneva, Switzerland and focused on the importance of the team in developing sustainable programs. The 6th Global Forum is to be held in Chennai, India, in November 2010, with special focus on the Asian continent. The 7th Global Forum (Geneva, 2011) focused on the importance of teamwork and research in building sustainable programs. The 8th Global Forum was scheduled to be held in Morocco, 2012, but was unfortunately cancelled to financial and local organization difficulties. The 9th GF held in Geneva 2013 focused on the Global Heart Network Platform and the Database. The 10th GF was planned to be held in Memphis, TN, USA but was cancelled with short notice .

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading non-communicable diseases in industrialized countries and a rapidly growing disease in the developing countries. With the Global Forum we wish to open a dialogue among different international partners to gather better knowledge concerning the needs of poorer populations; and target available economic, technical and human resources, in order to consolidate and coordinate these efforts in the most cost-effective and best sustainable manner.

We believe that time has come to reflect on the past failures and achievements with the challenge to create a strong partnership among all of us and to build a successful collaboration for the future. For this reason, international specialists in the area of humanitarian and cardiovascular medicine have been invited, as well as, representatives from international non-governmental organizations working in the area in order to further share their ideas and experience.

By coming together, we are sure to find the best solutions for better health and quality of life to the poorer populations of the world.

The 12th Global Forum in Athens, Greece  focused on plenary and panel discussions with the active participation from the audience regarding a vast of issues related to LMC countries, such humanitarian projects in pediatric cardiovascular disease, ICU management, neonatal surgery, nutrition and GUCH. It was also decided to start a Journal on Humanitarian Cardiovascular disease.

The Organizing Committee looks forward to your participation in this virtual meeting in November, 2023 and to an intensive and fruitful discussion during the conference. This year the GF will focus on neonatal cardiology and cardiac surgery as well as nutrition and furthermore the start of a journal on humanitarian cardiovascular disease.

Prof. Afksendiyos Kalangos President Global Forum	Dr Jan T. Christenson Secretary General Global Forum