Our main target is to develop projects specialised in health care, more specifically in hospital medicine and focused on Portuguese-speaking African countries.

In its early years, it provided health care to Mozambican patients receiving treatment in Coimbra - under a protocol adopted by both countries for patients with cardiovascular diseases - and carried out health care missions to the Maputo Heart Institute.
This non-profit-making Institute was inaugurated in June 2001. It resulted from the combined efforts of a number of European NGOs (Chaîne d'Espoir (France), Codev (France), Chain of Hope (England), Coeur pour Tous (Switzerland) and Cadeia da Esperança (Portugal) in cooperation with a Mozambican association, Amigos do Coração. It has the means to treat all main cardiovascular diseases.

In 2001, Cadeia da Esperança carried out two health care missions to Mozambique, one on Intervention Cardiology and one on Cardiac Surgery. Both were fully successful, in terms of the numebr of patients treated and of the scientific and professional exchange with the local medical teams.
The aim of such effort is to make it possible in the future for patients to receive treatment in places close to their family environment (which is essential for children), thus avoiding Mozambican patients having to travel to Portugal.

Two new Portuguese missions are already being planned for the current year. Cadeia da Esperança has given special attention to providing Mozambican professionals with further education, by offering them short training periods in Portugal and by integrating them in the missions to Mozambique.
Based on its cooperation experience in treating cardiovascular diseases, Cadeia da Esperaça is preparing more missions to other Portuguese speaking countries, which may encompass distinct fields of hospital medicine.

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