Sunday, October 17, 1999Nobel Winners Also Healing Minds
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
GRACE, Yugoslavia--Working in Kosovo is not as dangerous as it used to be for Doctors Without Borders -there are no more shells landing nearby, no danger of driving into a gunfight between Serb police and the Kosovo Liberation Army.
But long months of work still lie ahead for the Nobel Prize-winning group, from rebuilding facilities and providing medicines to healing the pain left by decades of ethnic hatred.
Dr. Eliane Keller, a Belgian family practitioner with the group, exemplifies that effort in an unexpected way -by standing aside to let an ethnic Albanian colleague care for Serb and Gypsy patients at their makeshift practice.
With those two ethnic groups frequently targeted by Kosovo's Albanians, Grace (pronounced GRAH-tsheh), is under constant guard by NATO troops. But inside the burned-out house the doctors use as a clinic, there is no tension.
Dr. Besa Basa, an ethnic Albanian, speaks to her patients in Serbian -and the topics are only colds, bad backs, headaches, a baby's colic.
There is no mention of who did what wrong when, to whom, none of the acrid recriminations that led to Kosovo's tragedy and now stand in the way of reconciliation.
"I am here if needed for consultations," says Keller. "But I figure the best thing I can do now is let Besa deal with these people -the trust that is being rebuilt here is more precious than any medicine."
The organization, which won the Nobel Prize on Friday for 28 years of action in the world's war zones, hopes to be able to pull out by next spring, in expectations that Kosovo's doctors and nurses, aided by the United Nations and other international organizations, can again care for their own people.
But there is much work to do before that -and Grace is only one of the places where the organization's 67 international and 254 local staffers are dealing with life and death.
In nearby Kosovska Mitrovica, a town divided between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, Austrian anesthesiologist Peter Grohr displays equipment more than 30 years old and speaks of the frustration in losing lives that could have been saved elsewhere.
"We had a patient here with a ruptured liver who bled to death -we didn't have enough plasma to help him," he says. "Others have died of shot or stab wounds that would not have been deadly in my country."
After 10 years of Serbian neglect and 18 months of warfare, the local medical system is in disarray. Kosovska Mitrovica's hospital, although one of the best in Kosovo, is no better than some in developing countries.
So the organization -known formally by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres -also is involved in projects that have little to do with its primary goal of treating the sick and injured in war zones.
Dozens of medical facilities have to be rebuilt. Food, fuel and building supplies must be delivered to those who cannot provide for themselves.
Grace, the village of Serbs and Gypsies, or Roma, is a prime example of how Doctors Without Borders helps the helpless.
Because Serbs and Gypsies in Kosovo are often targeted by ethnic Albanians, the 200 villagers there are an island in a sea of ethnic hostility. The weekly visits by Keller and her ethnic Albanian crew are their only chance for medical help -important where houses remain without window panes as winter approaches and daily tensions translate into mental and physical breakdowns.
"Most of the people I see suffer from cold-related illness, hypertension and stress caused by the situation here," says Basa, a pediatrician.
"When we started coming here two and a half months ago, there was some mistrust," she says. "Now, they come in, we talk, and there is no problem."
She spends about 10 minutes with each patient -kerchiefed women bent by age, unshaven men in dusty clothes, infants wailing as she gently forces their mouths open to check for sore throats.
In another room, ethnic Albanian medical student Bekim Hyla dispenses medication Basa has prescribed. Along with the portable pharmacy, the team brings its own folding chairs and tables.
"Tell your wife that they have everything," Zagorka Stanojevic, a Serb, tells a man standing outside as she emerges clutching a small packet of pills. "She can help with women's problems as well."
She waves dismissively when asked if she has a problem with Basa's ethnicity.
"The only problem I have is she doesn't come often enough," Stanojevic says. "I'd prefer to see her twice a week, instead of only once."Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times
senden