Tag Archive for: sponsors

Outdoor therapy area in Zalaegerszeg

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For many years now as part of our SME Sponsorship Scheme, and in collaboration with FirstMed Centers, the Robert Burns International Foundation has supported the Infant and Paediatric Department at the Szent Rafael Hospital in Zalaegerszeg.

This hospital not only functions as a health-care institution for the 60,000 people who live in this town situated in the south-west of Hungary in Zala county. It is also the main hospital for the surrounding area, and accepts patients from throughout western Hungary, and even from across Hungary’s borders.

In 2023, after consulting with the hospital administration we were asked to help fund a completely new project, an outdoor therapy playground located on the hospital grounds. According to the team of specialists who run the outdoor therapy area:

We can complement the therapy of children coming to us for rehabilitation from all over the country by using outdoor games to enhance their motivation for hard training and to offer them a pleasant experience. The majority of our young patients come to us with neurological issues, and most of them have impaired motor, cognitive, speech, self-motivation functions.

Playing outdoors provides these children with a huge dose of intrinsic motivation. The slide, the dolphin, the bee and the lily are very popular toys. In addition to us being able to offer them therapy in the open air, this equipment can serve important therapeutic purposes for children for whom sitting, standing and walking do not come very easily.

We chose this equipment for children with neurological disorders because they improve balance, coordination and head-torso control, relieve adduction contracture in children with spastic muscles, as well as developing pelvic stability and upper limb movement.

The hospital staff are delighted to be able to achieve these objectives thanks to the support provided by the RBIF to complete the playground, and our thanks in turn goes to everyone who attended the 2023 Burns Supper to help us do so. And our special thanks to Dennis Diokno and his team at FirstMed for continuing to support us in the SME Sponsorship Scheme so we can facilitate big changes at the hospital in Zalaegerszeg every year.

 

Students organise charity drive for Dept. of Paediatrics

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With our SME Sponsorship Scheme we normally team up with like-minded companies and on occasion individuals to support worthy projects helping children’s healthcare around Hungary. In 2023 though, for the first time we partnered up with a school to help one of the main hospitals in Budapest.

Students in the 11th grade at the BME International Secondary Grammar School wanted to hold a Valentine’s Day Ball, but to make it even more special, they decided to use this opportunity to raise some money for charity at the same time, as part of their commitment to help out in the community.

A lot of work went into preparing the ball, which had never been organised before at the school, and significant effort went into collecting a range of interesting and valuable prizes for the raffle, including cinema vouchers, gift cards, a tour of the TV2 studio in Budapest, and a weekend stay in Balatonfüred for 3 people. The money from the raffle totalled HUF 270,000, an incredible sum for the students to have raised, and this was duly doubled by the Robert Burns International Foundation to HUF 540,000.

Director of the Paediatric Clinic of Semmelweis University, Professor Dr. Attila Szabó, and Dr. Tamás Constantin, representing the Guardians of the Tűzoltó Street Foundation for Patients with Cancer and Leukaemia, were happy to receive the pledged funds, which were used to buy mattress protectors for the various wards in the children’s department.

A spokesperson for the clinic said:

“It makes you wonder what motivates teenagers to do such a noble deed. Family motivation certainly has a lot to do with it, and the school community, where the desire to help others is natural and accepted, can also be a decisive factor. It was a joy and a pleasure to see these young people. We are honoured that they chose us! Thank you!”

 

New equipment and re-decorated children’s department in Mezőtúr

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In 2023 as part of our SME Sponsorship Scheme we were delighted to team up with a new partner, HFI Kft., and we decided to continue our support of the Children’s Department at the rural hospital in Mezőtúr, in eastern Hungary.

Dr. Ferenc Antal expressed his sincere thanks on behalf of the hospital and clinic, and the children of Mezőtúr, for our repeated support.

We feel very fortunate that the Robert Burns Foundation has supported our department for the third time. We are also delighted that they have once again shown imagination in helping us keep the children’s ward running in this disadvantaged area and have thus contributed to the comfortable and safe operation of the children’s ward.

This year, the medical equipment bought included ambu balloons and inhalers, which are practically used on a daily basis for inhalation therapy of respiratory tract infections, neonatal blood pressure cuffs, essential for performing blood pressure measurements on all four limbs, and an infant pulse oximeter for respiratory disorders.

But the funding from the RBIF and HFI Kft. went even further, because we funded the re-decoration of the entire department.

Dr. Antal explains why:

It’s been about 8 years since we had our department painted, and after all this time, wards for children are worth a little renovation and painting. Not to mention infection control and the prevention of hospital-acquired infections. We were not a Covid care site, but were affected by the outbreak. Most of our patients suffer from viral infections and respiratory illnesses. Our hospital was able to do some repairs on its own, but other investments prevented this work from being carried out.

Let us pass on the thanks from Dr. Antal on behalf of all the children who are treated there, and on behalf of all the staff who struggle daily to ensure that they do not suffer from a lack of care.

Szent Rafael Hospital in Zalaegerszeg, 2022

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For many years now as part of our SME Sponsorship Scheme, and in collaboration with FirstMed Centers, the Robert Burns International Foundation has supported the Infant and Paediatric Department at the Szent Rafael Hospital in Zalaegerszeg.

This hospital not only functions as a health-care institution for the 60,000 people who live in this town situated in the south-west of Hungary in Zala county. It is also the main hospital for the surrounding area, and accepts patients from throughout western Hungary, and even from across Hungary’s borders.

In 2022, after consultation with the team of doctors at the hospital, the decision was made to purchase a Nihon Kohden multi-functional Life Scope bedside monitor. This monitor is able to track and display many crucial parameters of a patient’s health, including the carbon-dioxide content of exhaled air.

What makes this monitor particularly special is that it carries a smaller integrated portable monitor that can be removed when the baby or child needs transporting to other areas of the hospital for treatment. This makes such movements much safer and allows the medical staff to keep them under full observation even when they are outside the ward.

 

Peter Cerny Foundation, 2022

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Linking up once again with Norhot Kft. in 2022 as part of the SME Sponsorship Scheme, the Robert Burns International Foundation reached out to the Peter Cerny Foundation, well-known in Budapest for operating a fleet of well-equipped ambulances serving the needs of premature babies. Based in Budapest, this year the owners of Norhot Kft. wanted to support a project in the capital city, after previously helping to fund medical equipment in Székesfehérvár.

Following discussions with the foundation’s coordinator Barnabás Lendvai, the RBIF funded various pieces of equipment to keep the ambulances well stocked. The neonatal nitric oxide dosing and sampling kit will enable the ventilation of newborn babies with very severe respiratory failure. These single-use devices can be used to deliver nitric oxide molecules into a mixture of medical oxygen and compressed air, opening up diseased lung vessels and enabling effective ventilatory support for babies for whom conventional ventilation is ineffective.

The boxes of adhesive plasters and cannula clamps enable the attachment of a wide range of medical equipment (tube, probes, catheters, cannulas), while lancets for blood testing enable nurses to collect blood efficiently for the portable blood gas analyser and blood glucose meter.

The RBIF funded pads to be placed under each premature or sick newborn baby in the incubator, ensuring a clean, safe and comfortable environment. The bionector can be used to administer 3 types of medicine at the same time, while the umbilical catheters are used for umbilical cannulation, allowing for the safe delivery of medicine directly into the main blood stream.

With the Nellcor sensors and cables, the babies’ vital signs can be continuously monitored on the patient monitor, and finally, with the etCO2 cables it is possible to measure exhaled CO2 during ventilation, which provides very important information for doctors.

All of these items are crucially important to make sure that the ambulances are constantly on the road with the right equipment to make sure the doctors and nurses can take action at the right time, and we are delighted to have made a significant contribution in collaboration with Norhot Kft.

Infant and Children’s Department at Mezőtúr Hospital, 2022

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In 2022 as part of our SME Sponsorship Scheme we were delighted to team up with a long-standing partner of ours, WhiskyNet, who have supported the RBIF in its work for many years.

Using money generously raised by WhiskyNet customers with their online purchases, Zsolt Sziget and Kati Szatmári asked if we could help a hospital in the eastern part of the country. Following consultations with the RBIF’s medical adviser Professor György Fekete, we identified the hospital in Mezőtúr as a worthy beneficiary.

Dr. Ferenc Antal runs the paediatric department at this small, well-equipped rural hospital. The wards are comfortable, each with a separate bathroom, toilet and TV, and following discussions with him it transpired that the RBIF could best help if we managed to buy an air-conditioning system.

 

“Having adequate air conditioning is more comfortable for a sick, feverish child than a warm, airless, humid environment. The RBIF has helped us ensure this by purchasing a modern, high-efficiency cooling and heating air-conditioning unit, which we were able to install in our central corridor so that the air temperature and movement can affect the air in all the wards. It would be ideal to have air conditioning in all wards, but now we have this to our great satisfaction!”, said Antal Ferenc.

The remainder of the donation was used to buy blood pressure cuffs and pulse oximeters, which are essential for the daily care of newborns, as every newborn is required to have four endometrial blood pressure measurements and pulse oximetry monitoring a certain time after their birth.

 

“It was a pleasure for us to have the RBIF visit our department and to personally thank Mr Douglas Arnott, Chairman of the Robert Burns International Foundation, for his repeated support. We were also able to talk about the support we received ten years ago and were able to have a look at the Pulzox monitor still in daily use in our outpatient clinic, demonstrating that even in such a small rural hospital, there are adequate conditions for the care of young patients.”

New Year’s Honours 2019: Douglas Arnott to receive British Empire Medal

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The Chairman of the Robert Burns International Foundation, owner of EDMF Language Services Kft. and long-term Hungary resident Douglas Arnott has been awarded a British Empire Medal in the UK’s New Year’s Honours for services to charity and UK-Hungary relations.

The list of recipients is announced every year at the end of December. This year the British Empire Medal was awarded to a total of 358 people. Apart from those living in the British Isles only four people received this prominent award, including Douglas, who has been working at the RBIF helping sick and underprivileged children for seven years, five of which as Chairman.

Proficient in four languages, including Hungarian, Douglas graduated from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland with an honours degree in translation and interpreting, before settling in Hungary and establishing EDMF. For more than seven years he has been involved in the RBIF’s charitable activities, for which he was recognised with a BEM in the New Year’s Honours List.

The announcement of the award at the end of last year will be followed by the medal presentation this year along with a garden party at Buckingham Palace for the award winners.

About the British Empire Medal:

This high-level honour was established in 1917 as part of the Order of the British Empire and is awarded for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Queen. Between 1993 and 2012 the BEM was not awarded to subjects of the United Kingdom, although it continued to be presented in some Commonwealth countries. The awarding of the British Empire Medal to subjects of the United Kingdom was resumed in 2012 to coincide with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The final decision on the medal awards is made by Queen Elisabeth II herself.

♦️Gilly McArthur (@gillymcarthur) által megosztott bejegyzés,

2018 Projects: Hódmezővásárhely/Makó

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In recent years the RBIF has been intensifying its activities beyond the boundaries of the capital Budapest, and 2018 was no exception.

As part of the SME Sponsorship Scheme, and as ever with the medical advice from Professor György Fekete, former director of the 2nd Department of Paediatrics at SOTE II in Budapest, we got in contact with Ferenc Papp, consultant physician and head of department at the paediatric unit in Hódmezővásárhely in southern Hungary.

Having teamed up with the RBIF in 2017, the staff at Inter Relocation Kft. again demonstrated their willingness to get involved with this ever-growing scheme organised by the RBIF. Such was the donation provided by Inter Relocation, and doubled by funds raised at the 2018 Burns Supper, that we were able to buy not just two but in fact three infusion pumps.

During our visit to the hospital in Makó in December 2018, where one of the pumps is already in use, Dr Papp explained that “the pump enables IV fluids and also medicines to be dosed very accurately compared to gravity-based drips”, which really enhances the standard of care. Until the RBIF donation was handed over, the hospital in Makó did not have any such infusion pump. The other two pumps are now also being used in Hódmezővásárhely.

In Makó, the RBIF represented by Chairman Douglas Arnott was accompanied by HM Ambassador Iain Lindsay, Honorary Patron of the RBIF, and Stuart McAlister, Managing Director at Inter Relocation Kft.

Stuart revealed he was delighted Inter Relocation were able to continue their involvement in the SME Scheme:

“Our sponsorship of individual projects, under the stewardship of the RBIF, plays a key role in Inter Relocation’s CSR program. It is incredible that we can make a clear and measurable difference to a hospital in need, by investing in key equipment. I was honoured to have the chance to meet with the staff of the hospital in Makó and to learn first-hand how our donation makes a difference to the staff of the paediatric department, and the children they treat there.”

2018 Projects: Zalaegerszeg

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Very early one cold December morning, when it was still dark, we hit the road to Zalaegerszeg in western Hungary, a place hitherto notable to me only for the unpronouncability of its name. 

I’ve since nailed the pronunciation (I had plenty of time in the car).  Anyway, I was undertaking a day of calls and public engagements on behalf of the Embassy in Zala.  And the most important event I took part in, as a member of the RBIF Curatorium, was the handover of a donation of a bronchoscope to the Zala County Szent Rafael hospital’s paediatric department with Dougie Arnott (Chairman) and Dennis Diokno of FirstMed.  This donation was enabled through our SME Sponsorship Scheme, with FirstMed teaming up with RBIF in this instance to double the value of the donation.

We were lucky enough to be given a tour of the Paediatrics Department by Dr László Gárdos, Head of Department.  There was a festive feel as, on 6 December, all the doctors and nurses were dressed in Santa hats for St Nicholas.  It was touching to meet some patients and their parents, and to witness the serenity and dedication of the staff.  Seeing the newborns was of course a particular joy.  We also saw the helipad of which the hospital was very proud – but sadly (or perhaps happily) no helicopters in sight.

Dr Gárdos received the bronchoscope on behalf of the hospital.  They have not, until now, had their own bronchoscope and he explained how it will help them diagnose a multitude of breathing problems much more easily and treat airway blockages when, for example, babies or children ingest small objects.

Dr Gabriella Halász, President of the Hospital, said it was a huge honour to receive the equipment.  In fact, I felt humbled by the whole occasion and thought, on the contrary, the honour was ours.

Caitlin Jones
Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy
Curatorium Member

2018 Projects: Péterfy Sándor Hospital, Budapest

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The Péterfy Sándor Street Hospital, located in District 7, is one of the larger hospitals in Budapest with nearly 1,600 beds, where patients can be treated for an array of ailments and conditions. The Péterfy Sándor Hospital has been operating since 1848, which also makes it one of Budapest’s older hospitals.

The RBIF has been working closely with the hospital for a number of years, with its focus being on the improvement and provision of facilities and equipment on the neonatal wing, which treats and cares for newborn children, primarily premature babies. Despite the dedication of its workers, patrons and benefactors the hospital still struggles to provide the most up-to-date and holistic care for its patients. So one of the RBIF’s priorities is to support the neonatal wing by helping to equip it with the required technology, in order to ensure the comfort and survival of many of the prematurely newborn babies they receive.

The neonatal wing is run by Dr Gabor Baross who, with the support of his team, can deal with anything between 500 – 600 premature babies every year. Given the wing can only accommodate 20/30 babies at any one time, if one was to say the wing is running at capacity, it would be somewhat of an understatement. Dr Baross also explained that to compound this problem, it is getting harder and harder to recruit and retain skilled and qualified nurses, to care for the newborn babies, as they are being tempted to leave Hungary and move abroad.

 

What defines a premature baby who needs the help of Dr Baross and his colleagues? A premature baby is anything weighing between 500 grams to 1 kilogram. A baby born under 500 grams has a 20/30% survival rate, and then only a 30% chance of being healthy. Once a newborn is brought to the wing Dr Baross ensures he/she is checked extensively, and then placed in one of the incubators – presuming there is free capacity. Depending on the diagnosis, the baby will then spend anything between 4 weeks to 4 months within the confines of this incubator. Dr Baross welcomes visits from the parents, but this needs to be managed carefully as there can be up to 5 incubators in 1 room, meaning circulation space can be at a premium.

 

As a direct result of your generous help and contributions in 2018, we were able to buy and provide Dr Baross with eight top of the range bedside monitors, which is excellent news given our target was five. This has greatly helped the unit, and made the monitoring of the babies’ welfare far, far easier, as these new machines can measure blood pressure ECG, temperature and blood oxygen levels using one lead only. The older version required 4 machines with 4 separate leads. Not only was this inefficient, but it made holistic diagnosis / check-ups more complicated and timely.

 

What next? The hospital asks the government for support every year, but so far it is only patrons like the RBIF and others who provide them with support. The objective for 2019 is to acquire 3 or 4 more monitors as well as provide support for the wing to construct parent rooms. Despite Dr Baross winning an award for the most “Baby Friendly Hospital” in 2018, the department is still tired and limited. There is some redundant space at the end of the wing which can be converted into spaces for parents to stay with their babies. Currently there are 2 rooms (for mothers only) and fathers can only visit for a few hours every day. Fathers are not allowed to stay the night, primarily due to capacity reasons. Clearly this proposed construction for further parent rooms is (almost) prohibitively expensive, but with the support of the RBIF’s sponsors and guests there is always hope.