New Red Cross director puts spotlight on smoking

Considering the fact that Hungary is by some measures the third-heaviest smoking country in the world (Russia and Poland take the cake), one goal of the Hungarian Red Cross' new director might seem like a pipe dream.

"To improve public health in Hungary, yes, I would suggest people give up smoking and eat more vegetables, of course," says Ágnes Czimbalmos, who recently took over Hungary's chapter of the leading global non-profit.

"But," she counters realistically, "It is not that easy." Czimbalmos jokingly points out that an anti-smoking campaign in Hungary could be more successful than unbraiding corruption from the country's graft-ridden health care system.

Czimbalmos comes to her new post with a wealth of experience in the areas of health and psychology. The former deputy director of the Hungarian Red Cross has an MD in Pediatrics, a Masters' degrees in psychology, international relations and European studies, and a certificate in quality assurance and public administration. ("It sounds like I like to study and study and study," she laughs).

According to Czimbalmos, efforts to snuff out smoking in Hungary have been hobbled by an inability of the authorities to implement existing regulations. Already, Hungarian law requires restaurants to have both smoking and non-smoking areas, "but the law just isn't enforced."

"For instance, three months ago I was in a self-service restaurant at lunchtime and smokers were sitting in the non-smokers section, smoking," she recounts. "We asked the waiter to ask them to stop but he said sorry he couldn't do anything."

By contrast, she points to the success of anti-smoking drives in the United States, Canada and Australia, and advocates stronger measure by the government to further limit the number of public places smoking is allowed. "This is one of my dreams, to organize a nationwide campaign against tobacco use with governmental support."

In addition to the effort to clean up Hungary's lungs and promote public health in general, the Red Cross's activities include disaster relief, humanitarian aid, blood drives, unemployment counseling, and providing a tracing service for family members who have been separated during conflicts.

A member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC), the Hungarian Red Cross (Magyar Vöröskereszt) employs more than 1,000 - including 60 at its headquarters in Budapest - backed up by 240,000 volunteers and 42,000 paying members.

Meanwhile, this past June the ICRC moved its regional center for Central and Eastern Europe to Budapest.

Partners in name and goals, ICRC and the Hungarian Red Cross have worked together to end misuse of the Red Cross emblem in Hungary.

"We started the campaign to explain to people why it is important to not misuse this emblem," Czimbalmos says. "A serious situation might happen and people wouldn't know that the Red Cross means an operation to help in a disaster or armed conflict."

But until the Danube floods the metro and calls the Hungarian Red Cross into action, Czimbalmos says the best way to keep the public healthy is for people to take more responsibility for themselves.

"The minimum amount of vegetables you should eat [daily] is three times what you can hold in your palms," she says. "But it is hard. At the end of the day I ask myself, have I done that? And I don't always know."

• Email
• Save to My Caboodle