News from the asso­cia­ti­on

Many of us were for­t­u­na­te enough to be born into a deve­lo­ped and peaceful socie­ty. Howe­ver, for many child­ren world­wi­de, this is by no means a given. Ill­ness, pover­ty, and cri­ses defi­ne their dai­ly lives.

In ear­ly Novem­ber, a seven-mem­­ber team of doc­tors, mid­wi­ves, and nur­sing pro­fes­sio­nals was deploy­ed in Mendefera, Eritrea. The goal was to fur­ther impro­ve medi­cal care for mothers as well as pre­ma­tu­re and new­born infants and to streng­then obste­tric and neo­na­tal care in the long term.

Decem­ber invi­tes us to pau­se – and look back with gra­ti­tu­de on what we have been able to achie­ve tog­e­ther. Fit­tingly, the new edi­ti­on of our news­let­ter “On Cour­se” has been published!

They are only nine months old, iden­ti­cal twins – two girls, two iden­ti­cal dia­gno­ses, but wit­hout tre­at­ment hard­ly any future. With this dra­ma­tic initi­al situa­ti­on, the child­ren were pre­sen­ted in Octo­ber 2025 to the inter­na­tio­nal car­diac sur­gery team at Orot­ta Hos­pi­tal Asma­ra. The twins suf­fe­r­ed from a seve­re con­ge­ni­tal heart defect. This had alre­a­dy led to pul­mo­na­ry over­load and signi­fi­cant growth impair­ment.

At the begin­ning of August, Archemed recei­ved an urgent plea for help from Eritrea: two-year-old Nao­mi had fal­len ill with a retinoblastoma—a mali­gnant tumor of the reti­na that, if left unt­rea­ted, can lead to blind­ness or even death. Sin­ce then, Archemed has been accom­pany­ing the litt­le girl and her mother on their dif­fi­cult but hop­eful jour­ney.

A seven-mem­­ber team of pedia­tric sur­ge­ons, anes­the­sio­lo­gists, and nur­ses from Bre­men tra­ve­led to Eritrea again in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber with pro­ject lea­der Prof. Dr. Chris­ti­an Lorenz, for­mer head phy­si­ci­an of the Cli­nic for Pedia­tric and Ado­le­s­cent Medi­ci­ne at the Bre­men Hos­pi­tal Asso­cia­ti­on (Gesund­heit Nord gGmbH). During the twel­­ve-day mis­si­on, the spe­cia­lists were able to exami­ne a total of 95 child­ren and pro­vi­de sur­gi­cal tre­at­ment for 71 of them.

ARCHEMED is embar­king on a new jour­ney with a new name, a new logo, and new pre­mi­ses.

Moder­niza­ti­on requi­res trai­ning and ins­truc­tion: Fol­lo­wing exten­si­ve reno­va­ti­on, the neo­na­tal ward at Orot­ta Hos­pi­tal in Asma­ra was able to be reoc­cu­p­ied in spring 2025. After the relo­ca­ti­on, a medi­cal mis­si­on fol­lo­wed, focu­sing par­ti­cu­lar­ly on trai­ning in the use of the new medi­cal tech­no­lo­gy.

An inter­view with Dr. Rena­te Turan and Nor­bert Kess­ler on the reope­ning of the neo­na­to­lo­gy depart­ment in Asma­ra

A ten-mem­­ber team of sur­ge­ons, ortho­pe­dists, anes­the­tists, and nur­ses tra­ve­led again to Tosa­ma­gan­ga Hos­pi­tal in Tan­z­a­nia in mid-Febru­a­ry. Under the lea­der­ship of Dr. Naim Far­hat, Chief Phy­si­ci­an of Pedia­tric Sur­gery at Johan­­ni­­ter-Kli­­ni­ken Hamm, the spe­cia­lists work­ed in two teams and were able to pro­vi­de sur­gi­cal care to a total of 48 child­ren during the 16-day mis­si­on.