MAF – the Rega for remote communities
Young people suffer medical emergencies too – and that is especially critical in remote regions with no care available. There, MAF often becomes the rescuer, much like Rega in Switzerland.
The stories of three young patients – Neema, Yelikha and Angeline – show how MAF helps to save lives.
Neema’s story: surviving a hyena attack in rural Tanzania
Three-year-old Neema, from rural Tanzania, suffered one of the worst injuries imaginable. She had sheltered from the rain in a hut. In a hyena attack she lost an eye and much of her face. The attack shocked her small village and left her young mother Juliana distraught; she had left Neema in her grandmother’s care while she fetched flour. “When I came back, all I could hear were screams of terror, and the hyena was chewing away the area around her eyes,” Juliana says.
The injuries were too complex to be treated locally. Plastic surgeon Dr Maher Anous was urgently needed. MAF pilot Mark Liprini flew Dr Maher from Arusha to Dodoma in a little over an hour – saving days of difficult travel and allowing immediate care.
“Her case is one of the worst I have ever seen – arbitrary destruction,” says Dr Maher. “There is a risk that she will become a burden to her family. She has lost an eye and half her face.”
The first operation was a success. Dr Maher is planning a second major procedure involving skin grafts and microsurgery, which will take 12 to 15 hours. Although the road ahead is long, the flight with MAF has given Neema not only a chance of survival, but a chance of healing.
Yelikha’s story: a decade without a smile in Guinea
Thousands of kilometres away in Guinea, 15-year-old Yelikha endured long-term suffering of a very different kind. A road accident at the age of five left her jaw locked shut, so that she could neither open her mouth nor eat normally. For ten years her mother Aissatou searched for a solution.
“We really did go to a lot of hospitals,” says Aissatou. “The doctors we saw told us we would have to take my daughter to Morocco or Tunisia. But where were we supposed to find the money for an operation like that?”
When a specialist surgeon became available at a distant clinic, MAF made the journey possible and flew the family there in just two hours. “I thank MAF for their presence in Guinea. Otherwise we would have had to travel by road, and we would hardly have managed it,” says Aissatou.
The operation was a success. “Today my daughter is sitting here and can open her mouth. That had not been possible for a good ten years,” she says.
Angeline’s story: a life-saving flight in Madagascar
And in Madagascar, 35-year-old Angeline – already a mother of two – almost lost her life and the life of her unborn child to an ectopic pregnancy. The remote village airstrip was unusable, but local people came together to clear it in time for MAF to land.
“She is the last of my three daughters. I knew she was unwell, but I had no means of helping her,” says her mother Vaha. “So thank you for flying us.”
These three stories – Neema’s, Yelikha’s and Angeline’s – have one thing in common: MAF’s ability to reach the unreachable. MAF brings medical help to where it is needed most urgently, investing in the health, dignity and future of the next generation.
