The Balashikha Project
The Balashikha Project is based in an existing facility now fully modernized with state-of-the-art equipment and brought up to international standards and evidence-based practices. Training of perinatal professionals at all levels has occurred through bi-lateral exchanges, Russian teams consisting of neonatalogists, pediatricians, hospital administrators, midwives, nurses spending a week each year in Atlanta, Georgia, working with American professionals at Emory University Medical School, the World Health Organization/Collaborating Center for Reproductive Health (WHO/CC/RH), and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with reciprocal visits of American teams to Balashikha. Included in the WHO/CC/RH medical team is Dr. Peter Velibil, director of the Mother/Child Institute in Prague—where FOR has sent Russian physicians for education programs as part of the Balashikha Project—and for many years a senior physician at the CDC in Atlanta. This level of collaboration has led to lasting professional relationships and long-term, wide spread commitment to expanding into the rollout.
The Moscow Regional Perinatal Center in Balashikha has thus also become an educational center where nearly 300 Russian pre- and perinatal health care professionals have received advanced education.
The Moscow Oblast Region government contributed in excess of $3.0 m. to renovate and equip the existing medical facility. Most importantly, our Russian partners have helped identify and hire the key leadership and department heads needed to create a modern regional pre- and perinatal center. FOR has contributed intellectual capital to define, refine, and adapt international standards to create a modern Russian system and funded education, training, and professional exchanges to implement the Russian system.
