Mar 17, 2021
Elekta and partners persevere for months to get linac installation engineers into locked down country
尽管斯里兰卡在2020年的综合水平 - 19个问题中相对温和，但该国的政府并没有采取任何机会。2020年2月，岛国的停止停止安装和/或调试五个Elekta Linacs的活动：在国家医院Kandy的两个装置，以及Apeksha Hospital Maharagama（NCIM）的一个安装，除了调试NCIM的两个安装Elekta linacs.
Elekta’s Mohamad-Houssam Tamim
“该计划是为工程师开头以NCIM的三台机器，然后康迪的Linac安装，”Elekta的Mohamad-Houssam Tamim说，[查看“玩家”]。“Covid Pandemic在他们正在努力在NCIM的Linacs工作时开始，所以英国的工程师必须停下来回家。”
By March 2020, Sri Lanka had instituted consecutive lockdowns and banned all flights into the country – the Sri Lanka projects were at an indefinite standstill. It would be the beginning of a nine-month diplomatic mission thatElektaand key partners undertook – mostly by videoconference – to get needed cancer treatment systems on track to clinical operation.
“我们需要做我们可以让这些系统的所有事情运行。”
“考虑到这五个Linacs每周可以治疗多少患者，如果他们在运行，延迟每月耗时地花费数百个治疗，”Tamim笔记。“我们需要做我们可以让这些系统的所有事情运行。”
| 玩家们” | ||
|---|---|---|
| Elekta Mohamad-Houssam Tamim，Elekta现场管理和安装，地区土耳其印度中东和非洲（Timea） Habib Nehme.，执行委员会，Timea Seda Arabaci., VP – Order Fulfillment, TIMEA Manikandan Bala., VP – India & Head of Regional Integration, TIMEA Therese Lindé, Global Director Public Affairs 瑞典商业 Linn Boman，管理顾问 Massoud Biouki., Market Area Director, ME & TC to UAE Anjali Bhola， 专案经理 Siyol(International trade and engineering service provider / distributor, Sri Lanka) Sanath Perera. Sumith Premalal Nalin Navaratne |
Swedish embassy 克拉斯莫林,Ambassador (India, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka) Jonastan Klum Stelander, Second Secretary Political Affairs Lars Halvardsson, Second Secretary Consular & Administrative Section 斯里兰卡 SJS ChandraGuptha., Additional Secretary (Development), Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services 外交部（MFA） Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) 移民与移民部 |
安装工程师 Fanavari（伊朗）：Mojtaba Mohamadifar，Amir Gozalina 。拉米斯(英国):Halim Naimov, Oncotech (Turkey):Fatih Esin, Orhan Ogus Milena Tour（旅行社） Isa Canbolat, Turkey |
7月6日，2020年7月6日：遣返飞往斯里兰卡的航班！
As Sri Lanka’s lockdown dragged on, Elekta officials realized in July that they needed help to navigate the country’s diplomatic channels if they wanted the installations completed. After selecting Iran as the nation that would be the simplest for arranging travel for Fanavari engineers to enter Sri Lanka,Elekta转向商业瑞典。
瑞典商业– the Swedish trade and invest council – is part of Team Sweden and works in close collaboration with the Swedish embassy. The organization was already working with Elekta on projects in six countries impacted by lockdowns of varying degrees (Iraq, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Togo, India, Algeria). With offices in 45 countries, Business Sweden has a unique mandate to help Swedish companies grow global sales and international companies invest and expand in Sweden.
瑞典商业’s Linn Boman
Working in a public affairs capacity, Business Sweden’s Linn Boman first needed to explore how Sri Lanka’s permitting process worked to enable installation engineers to travel to the country.
“斯里兰卡在伊朗的大使馆关闭了，所以你不能只去那里获得签证 - 从伊朗到斯里兰卡的遣返航班通常仅适用于斯里兰卡公民，”她说。“所以，瑞典大使馆与斯里兰卡在伊朗的大使馆联系了我们，以获取有关如何继续的信息。我们有几个不同版本的如何完成方式 - 所有这些都是复杂的。“
The procedure was not simply complex, it also took months. Working with Elekta’s India distributor, Siyol, Boman needed to secure a letter from each of the Sri Lanka hospitals stating that the centers wanted the engineers to enter their facilities. Siyol, under the guidance of the Elekta team, prepared and received the letters.
“We had to share the letters with the Sri Lanka Ministry of Health [MOH] and Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA],” Boman recalls. “We also reached out to the India-based Swedish embassy covering Sri Lanka and asked them to issue official letters as well. After we got these approvals, we had to obtain approval from Sri Lanka’s immigration and emigration department, which issued the visas. Then, the Sri Lanka Civil Aviation Authority had to clear the flight boarding.”
After Business Sweden received all the necessary authorizations – including approval for the Fanavari installation engineers to travel on repatriation flights (though they weren’t Sri Lankan nationals) – the stage was set for success.
October 6, 2020: Repatriation flight to nowhere!
On their way to their final destination of Sri Lanka, the Fanavari engineers were stopped at checkout in Tehran, Iran a few hours before their 10:00 pm flight. Airport officials told them they could not board the plane, because the second stop, Maldives, wouldn’t allow them on their territory due to rising Covid concerns in Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Tamim于晚上8:30联系了Milena Tour的Isa Canbolat，他们在接下来的三个小时尝试解决了卡塔尔航空公司，使馆联系和瑞典商业。这种努力使坎博拉特在塔米姆的指导下，安排工程师第二天为工程师飞往土耳其，试图找到另一种方式进入斯里兰卡。不幸的是，在这些特定的时间内，该国施加了甚至更严格的锁定，暂停所有旅行授权。
“Despite Canbalot’s heroic efforts, we ran out of options,” Tamim says. “We – Elekta, Business Sweden and Siyol – had been working for months to accomplish this. It was a terrible experience and it strongly impacted me. But Seda and Habib were encouraging me all the way. While it was us doing the on-the-ground efforts, they were behind the scenes really driving me to refuse a setback, but to persevere and find a way to succeed.”
Tamim, Boman and the Siyol team would need the extra motivation as the situation continued to worsen. October’s stricter lockdown prevented even the Sri Lanka-based Siyol representatives from visiting the medical centers or moving freely within the country. Moreover, all authorizations obtained in July and later were now expired and the engineers’ visas were valid for only 30 days.
他们必须重新开始。
2020年10月 - 12月：增加赔率，减轻风险
To boost the probability of getting installation engineers into Sri Lanka, Elekta added engineers from Oncotech and Ramis, joining the original Fanavari pair; three teams would now make the attempt.
12月21日，工程师抵达斯里兰卡
与此同时，Boman和Siyol需要再次确保所有必要的授权，包括来自斯里兰卡的医院和公共卫生议员，MFA和航空和移民局的清理。
在斯里兰卡当局留下深刻印象，他们的使命，斯里尔和信使在12月安排了一个电话会议，其中包括Boman，Klas Molin，Elekta的Habib Nehme和Manikandan Bala，以及Sri Lanka的SJS ChandraGuptha。
On December 16, Siyol had obtained the needed authorizations, and Boman worked with Milena Tour’s Isa Canbolat, who coordinated with Qatar Airways to ensure the Fanavari engineers got a direct flight from Doha to Sri Lanka (i.e., the airline simply removed the problematic Maldives stop).
Meanwhile, Milena Tour arranged for the Oncotech and Ramis engineers to fly from Istanbul to Sri Lanka with a “stay-in-plane” stop in Maldives.
On December 21, the five engineers from the three teams arrived in Sri Lanka.
12月21日：赶快等待。
The two-week quarantine for new arrivals that had been in place until October was now a 28-day quarantine, a fact that Elekta, Business Sweden, Siyol and the engineers were unaware of until the day they disembarked for Sri Lanka. The quarantine would comprise 14 days in a hotel, followed by 14 days in another location.
斯里兰卡n officials agreed to limit the quarantine to 14 days on the condition that the engineers would restrict their travel to the hospitals and the hotel and undergo periodic Covid testing.
Finalizing the linac installation at a hospital in Sri Lanka
January 4, 2021: Finish line
The only remaining challenge that had been facing the installation engineers before they even landed in Sri Lanka was the lack of sufficient tools in the India/Sri Lanka region to work on three systems simultaneously.
“We have a limited set of tools per region,” Tamim explains. “We can’t send more than one toolset to a single country. Plus, Kandy and Maharagama are nearly 130 kilometers apart, so it’s not like NCIM and the Kandy hospital could share tools easily.”
Elekta headed off this issue by asking the Oncotech engineers to bring with them the most essential tools to at least start piecing the linacs together.
“这使工程师能够并行地在系统上工作，而不是在一个系列中，”Tamim说。
2021年1月4日，安装终于开始了。
February 2021 – Tenacity and teamwork
反映了2020年的事件，塔米姆和Buman将他们的团体成功归功于创造力，韧性和团队合作，以及致力于客户的需求。
在斯里兰卡一家医院之一的成品
“This Sri Lanka project was different from any other project we’ve carried out in this region,” Tamim says. “The sheer complexity and challenges we faced dwarfed anything we had encountered before. We confronted failure at many points during the process, but we always stood up and refused to accept failure as an option – our customers and their patients were depending on us. Having Seda, Habib and Therese Lindé behind the scenes encouraging, driving and guiding us really kept us motivated – that was crucial.”
The Sri Lanka adventure further solidified Elekta’s relationship with Business Sweden and Siyol, Boman adds.
“有great collaboration between Elekta, Business Sweden and Siyol,” she says. “If we hadn’t shared the same sense of determination, we might not have prevailed on the third try. We kept hearing rumors that it was impossible to move about in the country; apparently even diplomats had problems entering. We kept hearing ‘no,’ but we just kept on trying, and that resulted in success.”
根据塔米姆的说法，所有五个Linacs在几周内将在临床上运行。
