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Medical Help Where It Is NeededMedSpot Foundation provides care to families living as internally displaced people in the hinterland of the Russian-Ukrainian war in Uzhhorod and its surroundings, in Transcarpathia. Our Foundation’s doctors/psychiatrists and psychologists have been treating people suffering from various acute and chronic diseases, including many children, and monitoring the mental/psychological condition of internally displaced people for more than a year and a half. A significant number of refugees suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome which cannot be treated by the already struggling public care system in the war-torn country.

The problem of internally displaced persons is not well known in Hungary at all. Besides, public attention is waning in relation to the Russian-Ukrainian war – which is a natural process in a war that has been going on for years – but the balance of real facts is not necessarily maintained for domestic media consumers – so we consider it necessary to provide information about authentic places and authentic situations.

Our goal is to reduce the war trauma and allow the current internally displaced persons to start rebuilding their lives after the war in as good mental state as possible, with particular focus on the medically known lingering effects of war.

First-hand information is the most reliable source for us

That’s why we have made videos and interviews with Ukrainian refugee people and our professionals who care for them, to give a complete picture of the currently noticeable conditions, thinking and facts since February 2024.

Lingering effects of wars

We now know that long-term traumas are inherited partly biologically and partly psychologically. Thus, generations that did not directly experience, for example, the period of World War II, but are direct descendants of those suffered from that trauma, may carry as second or third generation descendants the behaviours and ways of coping – associated with fear, suffering or other experienced losses – that were incorporated into the family by their ancestors.

Slightly simplified, they may react differently (more violently or even with excessive withdrawal) to a threatening situation than the event or the environment might expect. Other ways of coping may provoke incomprehension and astonishment from the wider communities of acquaintances, friends or work, and may create feelings of isolation and exclusion in the individual, which also does not facilitate communication, connection with others and acceptance by the community.
The traumatic effects of wars can therefore be present for decades and can have a negative impact on thinking and actions, so it is a particularly important goal to reduce the impact of the suffered traumas by processing them.

Andrea's story

Andrea has been a volunteer interpreter for the MedSpot Foundation for almost two years now. She comes with us month after month to help care for patients every time the MedSpot medical team of doctors arrives in Uzhhorod. Andrea attended a Hungarian school in Transcarpathia for 8 years and speaks Hungarian with stylish accent. She had already been living in England for 7 years when the war broke out, and shortly after the war began, a family member of hers disappeared on the front line.

She had no other thought but to give up everything she had built up there and go home, because she was needed there. Since then, she has been helping everyone to find their disappeared family member. This became her job, for the time being, indefinitely….

Everyday life scenes through the eyes of a psychologist

What does a war mean in the dimension of everyday life and what does it mean to be a refugee in your own country? – We talked about all this with Lilla Gerlinger, clinical psychologist, during our mission in Transcarpathia. The threat of life, displacement and the accompanying psychological and spiritual difficulties have become an everyday reality for refugees.

Being a child in Ukraine

For children and families, the unstimulated environment, the constant transition, the waiting for the fighting or disappeared family members, the feeling of helplessness is particularly stressful and exhausting, and leads to a sense of insecurity – we talked about all this with Lilla Gerlinger, clinical psychologist, during our mission in Ukraine.

The story of Ruslan and his children

We met Ruslan in a small Ukrainian village, Perechyn, about half an hour from Uzhhorod. They fled Kharkiv three weeks after the outbreak of the war, on the night when the Russian retreat opened the way out of the city, away from the areas hit by the front.

Separated from family: the trials of an elderly couple

Yuri and Lyubasha left their home in Kramatorsk in the spring of 2022, at the outbreak of the war: they boarded the train with a single suitcase.

Since then, for more than two years now, they have been living separated from their family in a refugee shelter in Transcarpathia, struggling with all the trials and tribulations of being a refugee. We talked to them in our interview.

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Articles, stories told in words

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Helpers and volunteers behind the front line

Everyday life of the volunteer interpreter, Andrea

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Difficulties vary from day to day

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Misfortunes of a father

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Away from it all - the tragic story of a prisoner of war

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Inherited traumas

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Let’s talk about traumas

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Contact details

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  Medical help where it is needed

Mailing address

7 Dekovits street, 1126 Budapest

Office address

81 Ilosvai Selymes street, 1147 Budapest

Tax number

18903379-1-42

Bank account number HUF:
Account number: 16200010-10068182
IBAN Account number: HU57162000101006818200000000
Account holder: “Orvosi Segítség, Ahol Kell” Alapítvány

Bank account number EURO:
Account number: 16200010-10123690
IBAN Account number: HU4616200010101236900000000000
Account holder: “Orvosi Segítség, Ahol Kell” Alapítvány