Medical Fair Brno / Rehaprotex
18.-21.10. 2011

The International trade fair Medical Fair Brno Central Europe/Rehaprotex 2011 was a part of the Medical Summit Brno - Brno Health Week during which many accredited seminars, presentations, discussion meetings, congresses and symposia of international significance were held at the Brno Exhibition Centre. Expert accompanying programme with speakers from the Czech Republic and abroad addressed a precisely defined group of visitors - experts from the whole spectrum of healthcare professions as well as from the field of social services.

201 exhibiting companies from 11 countries attended the actual trade fair; the most foreign participants arrived from China, Italy, Hungary, USA, Korea and India. Exhibitions in Halls A1, A2 and C occupied exhibition area of 9 000 m², tens of other significant companies presented themselves within the expert programme as partners of conferences and attendants of their accompanying exhibitions. The traditional project “For Your Smile” - the biggest Czech presentation of non-governmental organizations and protected workshops associated with counselling, seminars and stage programme for visitors - was also a part of the fair.

The visitor rate of the trade fair Medical Fair/Rehaprotex will reach the number of 11,000 persons according to the organizer´s estimates. More than 500 foreign visitors from eighteen countries registered at ticket offices within the first three days, most of them came from Slovakia, Poland, Spain, Austria, Germany and Italy. The Press Centre accredited 135 journalists from 8 countries (accreditation was common for the fairs Medical Fair/Rehaprotex and Wood-tec).

Tens of interesting novelties attracted attention of the expert public and users. The best exhibits competed for prizes in the competition Medical Fair Award Brno, where the expert committee awarded three major awards. These were BTL Medical Technologies for BTL-6000 Shortwave 400 for continuous and pulsed wave diathermy, Otto Bock CR´s intelligent prosthetic system Genium and the ZLKL company for the world's novelty Elbe - the first vehicle designed to meet the needs of disabled drivers. The Honourable Mention of the evaluation committee and CEO of Trade Fairs Brno was awarded to the exhibit Tex Me of the Association of the Deaf Brno which facilitates communication with the hearing world through mobile phones.

Summit Medical Brno - Brno Health Week was clearly the largest domestic gathering of experts from various fields of medicine, and many fields of health and social care. At international conferences, Czech and foreign scientific capacities have given lectures. All expert events held from Monday 17^th October to Saturday 22^nd October were attended by more than three thousand people. The most important events of this run also included the three-day VI. International Congress of Mini-Invasive and Robotic Surgery combined with the V. Interactive Congress of Wound Healing.

On the fair opening day, the traditional Day of Health was held with the participation of representatives of all key segments of the healthcare system. The professional events with the highest participation also included the VII. Annual Conference of the Czech Society for Sterilization Steril.cz, a two-day conference on healthcare electronization eHealth Days 2011, the XXIV. International Congress of the Czech Medical Association of JE Purkyne on The role of child and adolescent gynaecology in the protection of future motherhood and the Round Table on the topic of the Social reform - pros and cons, organized by the Czech National Disability Council. For the first time, the Autumn Adictological Conference devoted to addiction issues and the Czech Senior Council presentation on How Seniors Live in the Czech Republic were held.

They said about the fair:

Leoš Heger, Minister of Health of the Czech Republic:
Ever since the First Republic, the Brno Exhibition Centre has been holding such great and big events. Although worlds of business, science and medicine are changing as well as traded technologies and which people encounter and gather information on, Brno has become and still remains the centre of these activities in the Czech Republic. I cannot but congratulate the organizers for having achieved this result.

Robert Vojtíšek, CEO of Madisson s. r. o.:
Participation is generally lower this year, but we have not underestimated the preparation of our presentation and it paid off. We invited a lot of our clients, because the fair does not only serve us to reach new customers, but it also helps deals that have started. We produce medical couches, bathtubs and other products that do not fit into a car, so we have the opportunity to present products at the fair that we cannot take directly to the customer. The planned meetings were held and we even closed some deals here. I evaluate our participation as quite successful.

Tomáš Hajský, PR Manager of Otto Bock CR s. r. o.:
Same as every year, we are satisfied with the standard of the fair. The number of visitors is about the same as in the previous years, our sales representatives and consultants have been fully occupied most of the time. Arranged meetings with revision doctors and representatives of insurance companies were held , so in this respect, the fair met our goal again. This year we focused on the presentation of our services, we offer advice of physiotherapists for the first time also a free service depot for users of wheelchairs or other aids. This service raised a great interest.

Soňa Formanová, Leader of the Programme Presentation and Enlightenment, The Wheelchair Association:
The project “For Your Smile” went well; compared to last year, this year presents more protected workshops and a lot of people came here. People were really interested in the products exhibited and they always left us carrying bags full of purchased goods, so our exhibitors are also satisfied. We were also pleased with interest in the accompanying programme because the auditorium was mostly full, and many spectators also stood around.

Bob Tse, Sales Manager of the Zhejiang GongDong Medical Technology, China:
We exhibit at this fair for the first time, because we are interested in entering the Czech market and finding a distributor here that our products would be supplied to in the Czech Republic and other Central European countries. We are quite satisfied with our participation at the trade fair and we appreciated its international dimension. We have dealt with potential customers from the Czech Republic but also from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Libya here. Many customers have taken samples of our products for testing, so we can talk about starting deals. It is our first experience with the local market, but I believe that in a year we will be more renowned and will have even more successful business.

Leoš Spáčil, Regional Coordinator of the Czech National Disability Council:
It is apparent that the number of both exhibitors and visitors decreases, probably due to financial and social reasons. Otherwise, in terms of organization, presentation of compensatory aids, protected workshops, etc. the fair fulfils its function perfectly. It is great that these organizations have the opportunity to stand out publicly, to exchange contacts with each other and discuss novelties and innovations. From the perspective of users, we would of course prefer if the fair spread, because people go here, choose utilities and shop.

Lukáš Přikryl, Business Development Manager, Stannah s. r. o.:
At the fair, we dealt with representatives of the professional public - social institutions, responsible authorities and others, but their interest is partly tainted by the current economic situation in the public administration. On the other hand, there was a lot of end users to which we could present our offer. All in all, we are quite satisfied; so far presentation at the fair still makes sense to as and to some extent it is a necessity.

Anna Brettová, Executive Head of Czech:
We discussed cooperation with the expert interested persons, but the main objective of our participation is to get into the awareness of the public and potential customers, we enlighten people on healthy footwear. We consider spaces in the Hall A more suitable than the Pavilion V. Less visitors came than in previous years, but yet we are satisfied here and for the next year we expect to participate again.

Ladislav Brázdil, Executive Head of ZLKL s. r. o., The Elbee Project Manager:
I was pleasantly surprised by this year. We exhibited here in 2009 and we were also here last year, but it seems to me that more people came this year. I hope that the fair is undergoing a certain renaissance which I would wish for people who come here as well as for the exhibitors and organizers. We are very pleased with the response to the Elbe vehicle which was huge, we have discussed it with a lot of wheelchair users and potential customers. In any case, we are satisfied with our participation at the fair .

Milan Chmelař, Docent at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Technologies of the University of Technology in Brno, a member of the evaluation committee of the Medical Fair Award competition:
The evaluation committee had a difficult task. It is a rapidly developing field and we were also faced with the problem of comparing things that are very difficult to compare. Selecting the best exhibit is then hard and we even had to vote. On the other hand, we are very pleased with the high level of the applied exhibits this year; any of them could have gotten the award, actually.