The Health Commission  was established by Sr. Barbara Staley MSC, former General Superior of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as a direct result of reflection and discernment by Missionary Sisters and lay colleagues at the XVth General Chapter of MSCs held at Sao Paolo, Brazil (2014).

Purposes of the Health Commission

The Chapter resolved to explore new forms of governance, and the Cabrini Global Health Commission is an example. The purposes of the Commission are:

  • To advise the General Superior regarding the extent to which Cabrini health missions reflect Cabrini charism, contemporary health and social services delivery models, and Cabrini strategic direction arising from the XVth General Chapter resolutions;
  • To evaluate performance and provide support to existing health missions around the world;
  • To ensure that the focus of all Cabrini health missions is the healing mission of Jesus, with the delivery of holistic health service and a particular attention to the vulnerable and needy.

International Health Meetings

The Health Commission held its first meeting in May 2017 in Rome.
With the generous support of Cabrini Australia, the Commission sponsored its first meeting in Melbourne in August 2018.

Representatives from Cabrini health service organizations in Argentina, Australia, Ethiopia, Eswatini, and Guatemala attended for the two day meeting as well as workshops and training with Cabrini Australia colleagues before and after the meeting. Indigenous Australian representatives from the far north of Australia (Apunipima) and colleagues from Papua New Guinea also participated in the meeting.

In June 2023 the MSC General Superior, Sr. Maria Eliane Azevedo da Silva, appointed the new members of the Cabrini Global Health Commission.

  • Sr. Maria Conceptión Vallecillo MSC
  • Sr. Hanna Dima Beyene MSC
  • Prof. Mario Raviglione
  • Prof. Ariel Pablos Mendez
  • Ms. Sue Williams
  • Prof. Matt Sabin
  • Ms. Nicole Rose Nieman
  • Sr. Patricia Argentina Godoy MSC

Events

Busisiwe Dlamini (Cabrini) and Clara Fappani (University of Milan) during the training at St. Philip’s Lab.   

Time to engage in Global Health
Conference September 21, 2023 at La Statale University of Milan, Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health

During the conference, a pilot project was presented in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland), the country in the world with the highest incidence and mortality from cervical cancer caused by chronic human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. As of this year, a project for an innovative screening modality for HPV and cervical cancer, led by the laboratory directed by Elisabetta Tanzi, scientific coordinator of CRC EpiSoMI – Epidemiology and Molecular Surveillance of Infections, has been launched in St. Philip’s clinic, run by the Cabrini Ministries Swaziland (CMS) organization, thanks also to the collaboration with the State University of Milan, to address a “top killer” of women in Africa. The project will be presented with testimonies from the students and researchers from Statale and St Philip’s Mission who are actively collaborating in its implementation: Simone Villa, research fellow, Clara Fappani, PhD student, Thavisha Gunaratne, student, Tengetile Motsa, CMS nurse, and Bongani Nhleko, laboratory technician.

Watch the video of the conference at this link: https://video.unimi.it/embedvideo/?mid=2001

The Voice of the Cabrini Global Health Commission

Members of the Cabrini Global Health Commission