The new UniCamillus CPD programme in Traumatology will start in December 2024. The course, which aims to train Libyan doctors to work in extremely demanding circumstances, has been created thanks to the collaboration between the Libyan EMSC (the body in charge of organising the health system in the North African country), UniCamillus and the Policlinico Di Liegro. Professor Massimiliano Iannuzzi Mungo, Director of the Department of Surgery and coordinator of the CPD programme, explained the context of the project:
“Libya is recovering from years of civil war and major difficulties caused by local tensions, clashes between different armies and the ongoing political instability that has essentially prevailed since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011. There are many international interests around Libya: a country of 6.5 million people, one of the largest oil producers in the world. So, you can imagine how many and what interests there are, and what has fuelled the numerous conflicts over the years, from the revolution to the war against ISIS to the clashes between the two factions, Sirte and Tripoli. Now there seems to be a rapprochement between the leaders of the opposing factions, so much so that they are opening up to the outside world again from a diplomatic point of view. And that is great news. It is good to know that peace can be restored and we can start talking again about the economy and improving people’s lives. I first visited Libya in 2012. Then I organised a series of humanitarian health activities in Libya and Italy, thanks to which we have treated many wounded people”.
So, this is not the first time you have worked with the EMSC…
“No, it isn’t. When this governmental organisation came into being, it asked us Italian medical practitioners, who had years of experience in humanitarian cooperation in Libya, to organise permanent missions, and I was the first to leave in October 2021. Other missions followed, until we had a first orthopaedic team and a neurosurgeon. Now there are 18 Italian doctors who constantly travel to Libya to work”.
When you talk about a governmental organisation, do you mean that it is subordinate to the government in Tripoli?
“Yes, that is the official, recognised government. But the EMSC also has a branch in Benghazi. We have to bear in mind that there is a distance of about 1,000 kilometres between the two cities, which are both on the coast. Since the different factions that used to fight in the civil war started talking to each other, a process of reorganisation and integration between the parties has begun, but it is complicated by many aspects, including communication between one side and the other in a country that is vast and essentially without a single functioning infrastructure”.
Do you intervene in this area?
“There are so many difficulties, but the government in Tripoli is determined to restore as many health services as possible across Libya in the meantime, regardless of which factions are in which areas. This is where the EMSC comes in. Community aid responds to an emergency number similar to Italy’s 118. However, there are not many ambulances, nor are there many facilities. That’s why they decided to focus immediately on prevention campaigns in the area and on assistance. In recent years, Libya, faced with the difficulty or impossibility of treating its sick citizens—especially those with complex illnesses—has sent them abroad, covering much of the cost. But this comes at a huge economic cost. Now, however, things are changing, especially thanks to the intervention of private individuals who have set up very efficient and functional facilities, bringing in state-of-the-art equipment”.
Is it true that you had to work in the middle of the desert?
“Yes, but I was still in a hospital, which was also very well organised. The experience was wonderful. You have to remember that most of Libya is in the Sahara. There is really nothing there. I arrived in a town called Zintan, which sits on top of a mountain almost 800 metres high. There are no trees, just sand and rocks. I spent one night in the desert, and it was beautiful, but I went there because some local entrepreneurs had opened a hospital, which they made available to the population. I must say that the facility is really excellent, up to European standards. Together with other colleagues, we have done a lot of work and we are about to publish some scientific results from one of them in collaboration with students from UniCamillus. They are doing all the bibliographic research on a very rare case of a huge diaphragmatic hernia, where the entire abdominal cavity protrudes into the chest. This is exactly the case I operated on in Zintan and the surgery went well”.
How did you get UniCamillus students involved?
“As Policlinico Di Liegro, we have been an active training and research centre for many years, and for some time we have had an agreement with UniCamillus for medical, physiotherapy and nursing students to come to our centre for internships and specialisations. We are very happy with them because they are very talented young people who want to study and learn more. We offered some of them to work on this scientific publication and they accepted enthusiastically. The result will be formally published in an American journal and they are very happy. In fact, something similar has already happened: we published a paper last year, again about surgery in Libya”.
The project with UniCamillus therefore has several different aspects in addition to training Libyan medical practitioners.
“Of course. We are interested in collaborating with UniCamillus in order to bring our experience in the field and the scientific experience of the University to Libya, and also to allow students who want to do an internship abroad to do it in a country that is developing, where there are also some interesting situations from a health point of view, as well as real difficulties to deal with. In Libya, you can find cases that you hardly ever see in Italy, because we usually intervene long before a patient’s situation becomes that complicated. It can therefore be very interesting for a young trainee to deal with these extreme cases—all the more so now that, fortunately, the situation in Libya no longer seems to be dangerous, since the civil war seems to have ended and it is therefore easier to work with the Libyan authorities”.
Was it the Libyan EMSC that contacted you at the Policlinico Di Liegro and then UniCamillus through the embassy for the CPD programme in traumatology?
“We have been working with the Libyan Embassy in Italy and the Libyan Consulate in Milan for many years. It all started a few years ago. Then I presented this project to the Rector of UniCamillus, Gianni Profita, and if I’m not mistaken, we had our first meeting in 2019. He appreciated it and, in his forward-thinking attitude, immediately gave his approval for the project to go ahead. Then came the request from the EMSC itself, which had the intention of creating a specialisation course for medical practitioners who had already graduated, so that they could complete their programme in the best possible way and learn more about the international guidelines for emergency medicine. We worked with the University and the Rector to create this CPD programme and presented it in Tripoli last year. There were some technical and bureaucratic requirements that delayed its schedule. Now, after a recent meeting in Rome, at UniCamillus, between a delegation of the Libyan Ministry of Health and UniCamillus Rector Gianni Profita, we are finally ready to start. We hope that this CPD programme will be just the first of many scientific and cultural university initiatives to be developed with Libya. There are already a number of Libyan medical universities that have expressed a desire to get in touch with UniCamillus, both to carry out international projects and to benefit from the university’s experience in training and research”.
So this is a large-scale, long-term, structured project.
“I am sure that this project will continue in the future. It has got off to a good start and I would like to thank the Rector of UniCamillus, Gianni Profita, who gave me the opportunity to represent UniCamillus in Tripoli a few weeks ago when the Business Forum was held. There I met the head of external relations of a private medical university in Benghazi, one of the most important in Libya, and he asked me to arrange a meeting with the Rector soon. So we can expect more news in the coming months as we develop the project”.