Kosovo

AmeriCares has been providing humanitarian aid to Kosovo since 1999, supporting victims of the war and assisting the rebuilding in the aftermath of war. AmeriCares has provided over $13 million in medical and humanitarian aid to the province. 

Over the past couple of years, AmeriCares has been committed to supporting Kosovo's health care reconstruction. AmeriCares established a partnership with the Dartmouth Medical School in 2004 with the mission of improving the field of orthopedics in Kosovo. AmeriCares and Dartmouth are working with Prishtina University Hospital Center (PUHC) on a two-year training and educational exchange program, which is supplemented by a humanitarian aid initiative to develop the resources of PUHC's orthopedic surgery department.

Inadequate surgical equipment, supplies and medicines at the PUHC Orthopedics Department makes it difficult for the Kosovar surgeons to provide adequate high-level care.  AmeriCares is helping PUHC overcome this problem by providing resources in the form of medicines, anesthesia, medical supplies and orthopedic surgical equipment thus enabling PUHC surgeons to improve orthopedic surgical procedures in Kosovo. The program is very successful as the Kosovar surgeons are learning many new surgical procedures and there is a significant improvement in the equipment and supplies available in the operating rooms. Due to the immense success of this initiative, AmeriCares and Dartmouth will be entering into a third year of the program, which will continue to focus on training and the provision of medical resources. 

While the partnership between AmeriCares and Dartmouth Medical School initially developed around support of the Kosovo Orthopedics Program, the relationship has grown to include support of maternal and children's health in Kosovo, as well as other medical donations that support the Kosovar health care system.