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AMDA Emergency Relief #21: Crisis in Ukraine (27 April 2022)

Countries
Hungary
+ 1 more
Sources
AMDA
Publication date

Beregsurany: On 24 April, an *AMDA-TICO nurse was asked to be on the night duty at the support centre for Ukrainian evacuees in Beregsurany, a village at the Hungarian border. The request came from local counterpart Med Spot that ran the centre’s makeshift clinic.

Little dropped by that evening due to the night-time curfew that had been imposed around the border area. However, the following morning, the centre’s staff and volunteers dropped in to relieve their fatigue after working long hours. The nurse responded to them by giving a massage and a Voltaren injection under the guidance of the doctor in charge.

Easter celebration with children: On the afternoon of 25 April, an outdoor Easter event was held for the children at the shelter. The kids enjoyed colouring activities and painting Easter eggs. They were engrossed in drawing flowers and painting things in blue and yellow, which represented the Ukrainian national flag. A joyous mood filled the venue with smiles coming back on the faces of both children and adults.

“I was glad to be able to see my child smiling again, which wasn’t the case when we were still in Ukraine,” a mother who evacuated from Bucha told the nurse. “I am happy that kids are unwinding themselves at last.”

“Hearing things like that and seeing them relaxing was such a relief for myself as well,” the nurse recalled later on. “It was a moment to realize that care-givers were also being supported by their presence.”

Aid workers to report the activities to the Embassy of Hungary Tokyo: Meanwhile in Japan (25 April), a doctor and a coordinator who completed their aid work in Hungary made a courtesy call on Hungarian ambassador to Japan His Excellency Dr. Norbert Palanovics. At Tokyo’s Hungarian embassy, the two reported the relief activities in which they took part and thanked him for the assistance provided.

AMDA-TICO could not have come in contact with Semmelweis University on this relief mission without the support of the ambassador and the embassy. It owes much to their kind introduction to the university at the time when the aid workers visited the embassy prior to their dispatch on 9 March. Ever since this relief effort started, the embassy has always been caring for AMDA-TICO’s aid work.

Responding to questions regarding the relief activities on the ground, the two gave updates that included some of the medical cases the doctor had seen first hand.

*For this mission, AMDA is working with TICO, a humanitarian NGO based in Tokushima, Japan.