Our mission - health equity for all

Discover Swiss Health Network for Equity (SH4E), our mission, our history and our commitment to health equity in Switzerland.

The story of Swiss Health Network for Equity (SH4E) began in 2010. From 2010 to 2016, the Federal Office of Public Health supported selected hospitals in their development as competence centres in favour of migrants, as part of the national "Migration and Health" programme (a sub-project of the federal "Health for All in the 21st Century" strategy). Hospitals and hospital consortia had to submit concrete projects in order to benefit from this support. The Basel University Hospital, the Centre hospitalier universitaire du canton de Vaud (CHUV), the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), AllKids (the paediatric hospitals of Basel, Zurich and Eastern Switzerland) and UNIDO (from Solothurner Spitäler AG and Kantonsspital Aarau AG) were selected.

The initial name of "Migrant Friendly Hospitals" was changed in 2015 to "Swiss Hospitals for Equity (SH4E)". While the initial focus was on devising strategies to enhance the skills of healthcare professionals in their dealings with people from different backgrounds, optimise the use of professional interpreting and improve access and quality of care for people from migrant backgrounds, the emphasis soon shifted to other population groups whose access to the Swiss healthcare system is hampered.
Hospitals from all of Switzerland's linguistic regions joined the Swiss Hospitals for Equity network and together committed themselves to providing quality healthcare to all people.
With the formal creation of the "Swiss Health Network for Equity (SH4E)" association in June 2023, a further expansion took place: not only hospitals, but also other institutions committed to equal opportunities in the healthcare system were given the opportunity to become members of SH4E.