A much-loved children’s charity which looks after sick kids across the north-east is linking up with doctors in America.
The ARCHIE Foundation announced yesterday that Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital (RACH) is joining forces with the children’s hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock in New Hampshire.
The foundation said the new partnership will mean opportunities for shared leadership, research collaborations and a nurse exchange programme.
A small team from RACH has been visiting the hospital in New Hampshire this week and formally launched the partnership and the nurse exchange programme at a reception in Harvard University last night.
The two hospitals were introduced to each other by a mutual donor who has supported the development of the twinning.
Speaking at the launch event, David Cunningham, chief executive of The ARCHIE Foundation, highlighted similarities in the patient groups at both hospitals and the opportunities it presents for ways to improve the care of local children.
He said: “By working closely with a partner hospital that has similar geographic challenges as we have in the north of Scotland, we fully expect to see some immediate and many long-term benefits for local children in both of our communities.
“They have a similar patient demographic but often very different ways of funding and even caring for those children and, of course, their families.
“That presents an exciting learning opportunity for both children’s hospitals, which The ARCHIE Foundation has been proud to help develop.”
The new nurse exchange programme will start later this year when a nurse from Aberdeen will be able to apply to spend three weeks in the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
