Four Hungarian ladies curing in Africa

Three doctors and a nurse went to Africa for a month.  They are taking part in the African-Hungarian Union’s 16th medical mission.

The volunteer medical team of the African-Hungarian Union (AHU) have travelled to Uganda and are staying there for a month. Dr Anna Jakkel from Kecskemét also participates in the action: it is her sixth mission after destinations like Congo, Uganda, and Mali. These places lack not only proper doctors but also the most basic necessities: running water, electricity, gas, internet, radio, television, roads, registration or vaccination. She told Globoport how difficult it is to face your own helplessness. There is nothing in these places that an ordinary hospital has (CT, MR, laboratories), except patients. The members of the mission carry the doctor’s office in their backpacks. Dr Jakkel was returning to Africa regularly since 2010: her first missionary job in a refugee camp in Congo has determined her later life. She had been to Uganda in 2013, near Hoima.

“There are so many things to do and countless untreated patients await us; we encounter many well-known diseases and ones that we only know from academic literature, and we don’t have time to think about why we have come, why we have chosen these cruel circumstances and diagnostic backgrounds, and why we decided to cure in these hidden lands without any infrastructure.”

Dr Anna Jakkei

Dr Jakkel is accompanied by pediatrist Dr Katalin Magyar, who joined the team because she is fond of treating children. The mission provides splendid opportunities for this. She claims that making a diagnosis without the most basic methods can be a challenge. Despite the limited access to therapy tools, she hopes that they will be able to help many patients and that the experiences gained in the tropical areas might be useful later. She would like to learn about African culture and the always optimistic attitude.

Dr Katalin Magyar

Dr Csilla-Katalin Bartha comes from Transylvania, more exactly from the emergency clinics in Târgu Mureș. She is going for her first mission with total determination. She hopes that her service in Mbale will be a pioneer experience for her. She is excited to discover a new continent with a new culture, and to study the needs of the local people and satisfy them. She hopes that this service will continue on the long run.

Dr Csilla-Katalin Bartha

The fourth member of the mission is nurse Ingrid Lengyel, who has already spent 30 years in this profession. She is a PhD researcher at Semmelweis University in Budapest. She has participated in several civilian helping acts, and after she joined African Hungarian Union, she was helping in the refugee camps of Körmend and Bicske. She had already been doing volunteer work outside Europe four times. She claims that she goes on her journey with help from above. She believes in learning about other cultures and taking our lives into account, and evaluating our surroundings from time to time. She was seeking a place where she can get such an insight into a different world like never before.

Ingrid Lengyel

Their work is helped by AHU coordinators Zsófia Könczöl and Kamilla Kiss, as well as AHU’s partner, the Hungarian Trade and Culture Center (HTCC).

Kamilla Kiss

Zsófi Könczöl

The team will be working in different parts of Uganda. They will host lectures for the local people, because healthcare in Uganda’s countryside is on a critically low level.

The African-Hungarian Union has been sending missionaries to the southern continent since 2009. More than three dozen doctors and medical experts participated so far, treating about 40,000 patients. They were curing in jungles, schools and prisons. They have treated malaria, AIDS, hollowed heart, purulent wounds, and they have managed complicated childbirths. They have met many patients who saw doctors for the first — and probably the last — time.

Photo: György Konkoly-Thege

ce: ZsK

Source: Globoport.hu