10/02/2016

The Royal Health Awareness Society (RHAS) has recently signed a grant agreement with Direct Relief to support the expansion of its Healthy Community Clinic (HCC) program with cash and in-kind donations of medical products. 

The donation provided in this agreement is from Direct Relief to support preventive health care services provided by RHAS in light of the Syrian refugee crisis. It furthers RHAS’ commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative made in 2015 to scale up the HCC program to 12 comprehensive centers across Jordan. The scale up will enable RHAS to impact 4,000 persons with high risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and patients with NCDs, at least 40% of whom are refugees, helping them to monitor their situation and decrease complications.

The agreement signing took place on the sidelines of the CGI Winter Meeting in New York, where RHAS’ commitment and this partnership was featured during the Plenary Session: Partnering for Global Prosperity. 

Commenting on the signing of the agreement, Hanin Odeh, the Director General of RHAS stressed that, “This grant is a testimonial to the importance of the NCDs epidemic, which RHAS and our partners are joining efforts to address. The health profile of Syrian refugees is similar to that of Jordanians when it comes to chronic diseases, and this grant makes it possible to extend preventive services to refugees in host communities as well as vulnerable Jordanians through the Healthy Community Clinic program. We, at RHAS, greatly appreciate this partnership Direct Relief, who has extended support towards healthier communities in Jordan.”

The HCC provides interactive awareness sessions to patients, addressing NCDs areas of priority (e.g. cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer) while encouraging healthy behaviors and lifestyle changes such as healthy diet plans, exercise and smoking cessation. 

“The HCC is a cost-effective model for patients and government, as prescribed medications and follow-up visits significantly decrease due to the adoption of healthier lifestyles,” added Odeh.

From his side, Thomas Tighe, president and CEO of Direct Relief said that: “It is a privilege to join with BD and in supporting the important work of RHAS, which is building upon their ten years of dedication to raise awareness about NCDs and provide essential preventive and primary care in communities and is now expanding efforts so that Syrian refugees benefit from this intervention and the goal of health that all people share.”