When we have friends or relatives in the hospital, it’s customary to take along a little something to cheer them up. Flowers, perhaps. Maybe a book or a few magazines.
But in Poland, hospital visitors need to bring food to make sure patients have something to eat. Or fresh bedding to ensure cleanliness and comfort.
What friends and relatives can’t provide, but the nation’s hospitals need even more of, are medical supplies.
“All throughout Eastern Europe, hospitals used to be supplied by the government. Now, they have to stand on their own two feet, and they can’t afford to purchase new equipment or even basics like penicillin,” explained Les Kuczynski, executive director of the Polish American Congress Charitable Foundation.
After martial law was established in 1981 and at the request of Lech Walesa’s Solidarity trade union, the foundation began a relief program to aid the nation’s most vulnerable.
Since then, Kuczynski said, $200 million in medical and relief supplies have been shipped to orphanages, senior citizen homes, rehabilitation centers and hospitals throughout the country.
In an effort to help keep the critical cargo moving, 250 supporters turned out for the foundation’s first New Year’s Eve gala in Rosemont’s Hotel Sofitel.
The $125-a-plate dinner, along with whatever the guests were willing to leave at the blackjack, roulette and wheel of fortune tables set up for their amusement, was expected to raise $50,000.
“Since it’s our first New Year’s Eve event, you never know what you’re going to make. You can only hope,” said Chris Marsh, the benefit’s co-chairwoman.
“Some said people wouldn’t gamble because they don’t win money, only raffle tickets” for prizes, said Marsh, standing near 10 packed blackjack tables. “I guess they were wrong.”
In addition to the foundation’s effort to provide relief, the 50-year-old Polish American Congress, which created the charity, has a long history of helping as well, explained organization President Edward Moskal.
“Right now, we’re involved in getting American industry to invest in Poland. The coal industry, for example. Their coal is very high in (polluting) sulfur,” he said.
