The opening ceremony got underway in the lecture theater of the Andreas Syngros Hospital where, in addition to speeches and greetings, the awareness-raising campaign created by the Onassis Foundation under the scientific auspices of the Melanoma Center was presented for the first time.
The Minister for
Health, Mr Andreas Xanthos, honored the event with his presence and a speech in which he stressed, inter alia, that: The Melanoma Center at the Andreas Syngros Hospital, which has now been fully modernized thanks to a donation from the Onassis Foundation, can help prevent skin cancer as well as providing early diagnoses and high-quality treatments to patients. It constitutes a further investment in public health, which has already been the recipient of significant human and material resources over the past three years.
Guided by medical innovation and excellence, applying meaningful, development-focused criteria, and seeking to release the potential of Greek society, the
Onassis Foundation continues to support projects that are helping address the need of thousands of patients for access to high-quality, specialized health services. It was within this framework that we both supported the Andreas Syngros hospital in its efforts to rebuild the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Center, and contributed to combating both through the campaign to raise public awareness of the dangers of melanomas and skin cancer. Because when the Onassis Foundation supports a public benefit initiative, it does more than simply fund a project. For the Onassis Foundation, working for the common good means connecting and collaborating on shared visions, values and goals. We support these in every way we can, which means we build on solid foundations, the President of the Onassis Foundation, Dr Anthony Papadimitriou, mentioned among other things in his speech.