The Hungarian medical mission to Africa is now over – read an interview with one of the members

Hot, humid tropical weather and a restless team of five Hungarians willing to help the people in Uganda. That was the 13^th, one-month long medical mission, where the Hungarians cured those in need and gave lectures to the locals of Uganda. They set up temporary offices in an orphanage and schools also in Buganda. The African Hungarian Union’s medical mission has done a great job again. Read our interview with one of the mission’s members, Bernadett Kovács, coordinator of AHU.

AHU was founded in 2006 as a non-governmental, non-profit organisation with the aim to provide aid and development for the countries of Africa. Their mission has been to carry out the developments by using the certain countries’ own resources and active participation in the process, thus their help would result in a long-term sustainable change.

Aside Bernadett Kovács, as we wrote earlier, the members of the mission were MD Zita Bagdi, general doctor, MD Zsófia Kapi, who is an ear nose and throat specialist, Attila Gáspár, paramedic and Dániel Kovács, volunteer. They all signed up to provide help between April 4 and May 2 for people who have barely or never been seen by a doctor before.

Is there anything you can recall as an exceptionally significant experience that happened during the journey?

Completely accidentally I met a British man who had established a non-profit organization with the aim of supporting the education of children, who live there in Kampala, on the slum built on a landfill. Before our last day there, he showed us around their residence: three square meters for six people and no beds, and their restroom was that free little area next to the house. For all this they had to pay about 3000 HUF per month. Ever since I had been there, the visuals keep hitting my mind.

What should we know about Uganda? Why did you choose this country as your destination?

Uganda is a beautiful country in East-Africa, with a population about 3.5 times bigger than the Hungarian. It is rich in natural treasures, has a developing economy, but socially it really lags behind other countries. There is a huge contrast in Kampala, the capital city, which was built on hills and where the location of the houses illustrates the social statuses: the rich live on the top of the hill, while the poor people reside in the valleys. In the rainy season a lot of elder and really young kids, infants die because of the downpour, as they cannot escape the flood. Several other missions have been there already, even the Hungarian Trade and Cultural Centre is there, and one of its members has lived there for a few years now with the family, who could help us with the organisation.

What would you name as the greatest cultural difference you had faced there?

Their attitude and mentality was really different from the people in Hungary: they live joyfully, they are smiling a lot and they are really helpful. Their lives do not go around a schedule: when you agree on a meeting it probably will not happen at that time you originally discussed on.

How was this month challenging in a professional way, for, of course, you participated in the mission as the coordinator of AHU, but you are a nurse as well?

Our team has prepared for the typical African diseases, but there were some diseases which are no longer present in Hungary and we had only met them in our course books before. Such were the sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, the tropical diseases, malaria, different kinds of helminthiasis and the tuberculosis.

These you mentioned are all long course and serious illnesses, how much of a solution could you provide then within one month?