Supporting Greece's Nursing Sector - Stavros Niarchos Foundation

There is no manual on how to stay awake and alert all night. Nor is there a peer-reviewed procedure for elevating the body’s levels of courage. Thankfully, though, there are people who specialize in this, and it is our duty to support and empower them however we can.

At the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), we strive to provide meaningful support to the nurses who are on the front lines of health care every single day, in recognition of the demanding and vital role they play in treating patients.

“As the years go by, with the advent of new technology, we see that doctors may no longer be necessary because they will be replaced by machines. But what cannot be replaced by anything is their love, care, and support; the pain and sorrow that nurses feel with patients and how they convey these feelings.”

Charalambos Roussos

Academic, Professor Emeritus at NKUA Medical School

As part of our Global Health Initiative (GHI) and with an emphasis on the value of education, SNF grants are supporting the nursing schools at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and Athens Evaggelismos General Hospital. Our support focuses on three main pillars: the procurement of educational and research equipment, the implementation of educational and research programs, and funding for academic and educational scholarships.

How we support the nursing school at NKUA

Specifically, our grant to the NKUA Department of Nursing includes the procurement of specialized equipment for more than 10 laboratories for the implementation of educational programs, as well as the procurement of medical and technological equipment for classrooms, such as specialized simulations of medical and nursing procedures; adult, child, and infant simulators; and digital anatomy tables. At the same time, we have supported the implementation of 3 research and 8 educational programs which have been attended by more than 1,600 nurses. The SNF GHI also supports the five-year TraumaEdu program implemented by the nonprofit Regeneration & Progress, which includes the five-year ATCN (Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses) program on the management of polytrauma for thousands of final-year nursing students and graduates.

Our grant also covers full and part-time academic scholarships for 15 people, with key benefits that include improved collaboration with educational institutions, referral contacts in each medical service, and comprehensive supervision, support, and evaluation for students. Furthermore, our support gave nurses, academics, scholars, and faculty members the opportunity to attend simulation training programs at world-class international institutions such as the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US and Kingston University London in the UK.

“Our students can now be trained in clinical simulation scenarios in the latest manner, in the most up-to-date conditions, and are thus properly prepared for their transition to the clinical setting. I can now say that a lifelong dream has become a reality.”

Margarita Giannakopoulou

Professor in Nursing at NKUA, Director of the Clinical Nursing Applications Laboratory

How we support the nursing school at Athens Evaggelismos General Hospital

Our longstanding partnership with the Athens Evaggelismos General Hospital has gradually expanded organically to include the nursing sector. One of the key areas that has been strengthened, both at the hospital and in NKUA’s Department of Nursing, is simulation-based education, with the implementation of programs that utilize state-of-the art equipment. To meet educational needs, we supported the procurement of specialized simulations of medical and nursing procedures; adult, child, infant, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation simulators; and many other things. The impetus for the creation of a simulation center at the hospital was the participation—as part of our grant—of a fellow in a training program at Johns Hopkins University. The grant has supported 56 scholarships for postgraduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral studies and the continuing education of nurses and doctors in Greece and abroad, as well as 3 visiting professorships.

Additionally, our grants supporting the procurement of equipment at the hospital, including 850 new patient beds and 150 pieces of medical equipment and the procurement and installation of a digital nurse call system with a total of 798 call units for 23 nursing stations that have significantly assisted in the daily routines of the hospital’s nursing staff and thereby contributed to improving the care provided to patients.

“Today we attended a clinical simulation seminar. It was something completely different from what we have been accustomed to. We put aside our books and worked on our practical skills. We came in contact with a clinical case which we could encounter in any hospital or health center in the Greek provinces or in Athens, and I hope that this will be a starting point for the cutting-edge education of all young doctors and nurses in Greece.”

Efthymia Karagiani

4th-year Student

Find out more about SNF’s support for the nursing sector in Greece and our Global Health Initiative (GHI), which seeks to improve access to quality care for all and is exclusively supported by SNF with a total budget exceeding $1 billion.