Belgrade – Istanbul, November

Sometimes the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Republic of Serbia receives extremely urgent requests for help. As part of the Embassy project “Make a WISH to the Sovereign Order of Malta”, we recently received one of these “WISHes”. The request for an emergency operation was sent to us by a gentleman from Serbia, artist and professor at the University of Belgrade.  He was in need of urgent surgical intervention with Gamma knife, ie. intracranial stereotactic radiosurgery technique. For this type of surgery, it is necessary to have advanced equipment that allows the application of high doses of radiation with extreme precision to the target structure of the skull (nerve, ganglion or brain area) while preserving the surrounding structures. There are few of them in Serbia and the waiting list for this intervention is very long.

Sensing the delicacy and the need for urgency, we reacted rapidly in the Embassy: we looked for a hospital capable of carrying out this intervention immediately. Once the hospital was found, KOÇ University Hospital in Istanbul, we provided radiosurgical treatment in very short time.
The operation was performed recently and the patient is feeling well.

Once again, because of such delicate WISHES, we did not give up even though we were facing logistical difficulties or problems with national borders.