RABBIE Burns, Scotland’s greatest poet, was a lecher and a lush. He was also a man of uncommon human understanding and compassion, particularly when it came to children.
It is appropriate, therefore, that the annual supper given the world over to celebrate Burns’ name, nature and work, should, here in Budapest, raise millions of Forints for children.
The money raised actually goes to the For Our Children, ’91 Foundation, which supports the II Department of Pediatrics, Semmelweis University. And the money has, literally, transformed the place.
"Everybody in this department, and there are more than 300 people, know that all the equipment we have got in the last three years were donated by Scottish people. They know all about the Burns evening and are very thankful," said Dr György Fekete, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the II Department (a post he has held since June 1994).
Of course, the money has not come from Scots alone - you will meet many a person at the Budapest Burns’ Supper who has no Scottish blood - but it does come in the spirit of that nation.
It is a spirit that has taken an empty operating theater and made it a vital lifeline for children from very young, premature babies weighing less than a kilo, up to those up to 18 year old.
Fekete has seen that transformation first hand and, perhaps, fully understands the impact it has had better than anyone.
A quite, softly spoken family man (he has a 23 year old son and a 19 year old daughter), he was described by Jock Mackenzie, the driving force behind the Burns Supper since its introduction to Budapest four years ago, as "a truly excellent, inspiring man".
Currently the President of the Hungarian Association of Pediatrics (he was elected in January 2000 for a four year term), he came to work at the II Department in 1968 straight from university and has stayed here ever since.
The biggest project was undertaken in the second and third years of the Burns Supper (‘99 and 2000), when the decision was taken to re-equip the operating theater. Originally home to the National Pediatric and Cardiology Unit, the cash-strapped State Health Ministry had closed the theater down, transferring the unit to another hospital.
That forced the II Department to double-shift all its operations in to a secondary, smaller theater.
"It was a very bad feeling to see this theater empty and unused," said Fekete.
A bad feeling, and highly limiting to the work the department could do.
Stage one was a state-of-the-art, multi-task operating table, an Eschmann RX500. That cost about Ft5 million, then a little more than $20,000.
Next came specialist operating lights, theater furniture and new equipment (replacing some that was 30 years old).
Since it was re-fitted and re-opened, the room has been in near continuous use. The department uses the same staff to run the two theaters. The smaller one specializes in ear, nose and throat work, and operates on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving the larger theater free to function on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Dr Károly Ungar, the Professor’s Assistant who has worked at the II Department for five years, estimated that an average of five operations are performed per day using the new equipment.
"It has made a huge difference to what we have been able to do and we have had no problems with the table - it has never had to be serviced," said Ungar.
The 2001 Burns Supper raised a record amount for one night, some Ft7 million. (By the time all the money was collected in, it had risen to Ft8.2 million). That was used to buy a mobile X-ray machine, which has already been in use for three months.
Fekete explained that it was necessary because children were often too sick to be moved to the X-ray theater. Now, the theater could come to them.
The January 2002 project is to buy two monitors for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, measuring such vital signs as pulse, blood pressure, breath rate and the amount of oxygen in the blood.
"These are very important, very expensive pieces of equipment and unfortunately ours are now quite old," Fekete explained.
"These are for critically ill children."
The irony is that Fekete now presides over one of the best equipped pediatric departments in the country, housed in a building that is 110 years old (the Emperor Franz Joseph laid a corner stone).
The department, with help from its foundation and Semmelweis University, has just had the roof repaired.
That it could afford to do so is testament to the success of the Burns ‘ Supper in relieving financial pressures elsewhere.
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30.11.2001