Johnson & Johnson Corporate Giving

Helping to Enhance Trauma Care in West Africa 

Advanced trauma has arrived and is thriving throughout West Africa as a result of a collaborative effort between Johnson & Johnson and several partners.

This project began in 2005, when Johnson & Johnson joined International Aid, a Spring Lake, MI-based Christian relief organization and the West African College of Surgeons (WACS) to construct the Ghana Surgical Skills Training Center (SSTC) at Korle bu Hospital in Accra, Ghana. The SSTC also began its Advanced Trauma Operative Management (ATOM) course to train surgeons on immediate critical care to treat trauma victims.

Johnson & Johnson provided financial support for two operating rooms and a variety of surgical instruments and supplies for wound care. International Aid provided logistical and technical support governing functionality of all equipment, and constructed and prepared the operating center.

ATOM ensures that positive outcomes expand throughout the 15-nation region, where previously critical surgical care was widely unavailable for patients in remote locations, far from hospitals where trauma cases are usually treated. Since the SSTC opened, West African surgeons can utilize their newly gained knowledge to treat patients in their home countries.

Anesthesiologists, operating theater nurses and biomedical equipment technicians also have received associated training and mentoring. As the program matures, its partners hope to add new courses to expand care in orthopedics, laparoscopy, and surgical operating room technology. By year-end 2007, program leaders expect to have trained 100 surgeons.

Tsunami: Rebuilding a Community Almost Washed Away

Following the world's deadliest tsunami in December 2004, Johnson & Johnson supported multiple initiatives to assist survivors and communities devastated by the disaster in South Asia.

Like many medical technology companies, Johnson & Johnson supported several relief efforts with partners including the World Wildlife Fund, the University of Indonesia (UI), the Emergency Ambulance Service Foundation (Indonesia) and International Aid.

The company especially reached out to assist child survivors, through the Bio Psychosocial Support (BPS) Program, which identified and treated children mentally and emotionally scarred by the tsunami, many of whom left without parents or other relatives following the disaster.

Johnson & Johnson Indonesia worked with UI to develop programs to identify and provide for children who needed psychosocial assistance. The program includes psychological first aid for children and training for health care workers to run group psychological support programs for kids, psychosocial materials and public education on coping with mental health disorders.

In its longer-term outreach, Johnson & Johnson has partnered with International Aid and the Ministry of Health in Aceh Province to open a medical equipment service center. The first of its kind in Indonesia, the center has helped hospitals resume their health care provider roles by salvaging or replacing their technical instruments and equipment.

Access additional information on Johnson & Johnson's social responsibility programs.