Ilse Zaal, doctor for the mentally handicapped and junior palliative care physician, has traveled to the Hungarian village of Beregsurány. As a volunteer she offers primary care to refugees for ten days. She is staying in a temporary aid station about a mile from the Ukrainian border. Her journey is an adventure, special and also exciting. Because what does Ilse find? How can it be significant? Ilse gives a personal insight into her diary three times. Read her first story here.

Beregsurány is normally a peaceful rural village with about 630 inhabitants. A village like there are so many in eastern Hungary. In the tiny center, a provisional reception center has been set up for refugees from Ukraine in an old school building and town hall. Provided by the Hungarian volunteer organization MedSpot. The refugees are mostly on their way to Budapest. Or even further, to the west. Here they receive free food, a bed and, if necessary, items such as clothes, soap or sanitary towels. Many villagers voluntarily help in this shelter. They pick up the refugees from the border, work as an interpreter or take care of the meals.

 Ilse together with a nurse and two coordinators

Too poor to buy paracetamol

In addition to war refugees, there is also a stream of refugees staying just across the border in Ukraine. This is a particularly poor area where no fighting is taking place at the moment. People from these extremely poor communities have no access to basic medical care such as vaccinations. They come to Beregsurány for medical care, some food or things they cannot buy. However, they are not used to traveling and often leave Ukraine without documents, not knowing that they cannot return without a passport.

 Ilse at work in the shelter

And so a young woman of 22 years old appeared at my office with a two week old baby. She had fainted for a moment, which is not unusual in the current temperatures of well above 35 degrees. When she came to, she said she had a terrible headache. She also said, with the help of an interpreter, that she had not been able to sleep, eat or drink for days. When I asked her why all that didn't work, she started crying uncontrollably. On her mobile phone she showed me a picture of her deceased mother. She couldn't have been at the deathbed and she wanted to go back to Ukraine to at least attend the funeral. But her daughter had no birth certificate, so she was not allowed to cross the border. Contact had been made with the embassy and waiting for that birth certificate. But no one knew how long that would take… She was exhausted from stress. That was also the reason she didn't eat and hadn't been able to sleep for a few nights now.

I listened to her story and tried as best I could through an interpreter to show my sympathy. For her headache I gave paracetamol, which she was grateful for as she was too poor to buy it. She left the office, her daughter sleeping peacefully in her arms.

Two days later I saw her again. Her mother had been buried the day before…