Red, yellow, striped. Knitted and crocheted. The knitting brigade from Assen has not made half work of it. Tropical doctor Sieuwke Hartmans from Aldeboarn received hundreds of knitted baby hats for her hospital in Tanzania on Thursday.
Dozens of hats lie on the kitchen table of Henk and Janneke Linstra from Assen. In three large plastic bags there are piles of hats and also scarves, socks and cardigans. All crocheted and knitted by Janneke’s ladies’ club. Tropical doctor Sieuwke Hartmans (30) from the Frisian Aldeboarn gratefully receives them and takes them to her hospital in Tanzania.
There, in the Endulen Hospital in the Ngorongoro District of the Serengeti National Park, newborn children desperately need the hats. Because the hospital is located at an altitude of 1900 meters. “It’s not that hot there, at night it cools down to 15 degrees,” says Sieuwke. “Newborn babies almost all wear a hat. In the Netherlands and also in Tanzania. And the babies in our hospital are often malnourished or sick. They don’t hold the heat.”
Legacy Frans Senff
Hartmans is the successor of the Asser general practitioner Frans Senff. He traveled to the hospital in northern Tanzania for seventeen years. Twice a year he went to the African country for seven weeks to help in the hospital, where 90,000 Masai depend on medical care. Senff returned to Assen in March 2021 and was hit by corona there. He died in hospital more than a month later, at the age of 67. The GP left a bequest to the Endulen Hospital in Tanzania and tropical doctor Sieuwke Hartmans will be paid from that money for two years.
Sieuwke has spent the first six months in the hospital and is back in the Netherlands for two weeks to refuel. “On September 1 I will leave for Tanzania again.” She takes the knitted baby hats, scarves and socks with her in an extra suitcase. In Assen she also catches up with the Chagos foundation, which manages Frans Senff’s bequest and donations for his volunteer work. Henk Linstra is the treasurer of the foundation and knew Senff well. His wife Janneke worked for many years at Senff’s general practice. Janneke and her club have been knitting for Senff for years. “He didn’t call us a knitting club, but the knitting brigade.” ,,That takes the stuffy out of it a bit”, adds one of the ladies.
The hospital in Tanzania has 110 beds and more than forty employees. Sieuwke Hartmans: ,,I am one of the two doctors. I do the medical business in the clinic, the other doctor does the management and is the boss. When I arrived I was impressed with how the hospital organized the equipment. Frans had taught them that. For example, the refrigerator with the blood supply was always up to standard. But when I got there the fridge broke and we were able to destroy all the blood. We went to a secondary school and took blood samples from the oldest students there. They got a can of coke and a pack of cookies and were completely happy. They immediately wanted to give blood again.”
Many pregnant women
The patients in the hospital were used to a white doctor with Senff, so they trusted Hartmans. “A doctor has a status among Masai. I now speak a little Swahili and a few words Masai. But I also have an interpreter.” Many pregnant women visit the hospital. ,,Some come too late, if they have already been giving birth for twelve hours. The chance of a stillborn baby is then high. Sometimes they come from sixty kilometers away, on the back of the motorcycle. Many Masai have no money for an ambulance.”
It is important for the future that the fixed costs of the hospital are paid, says Hartmans. The Chagos foundation transfers 1400 euros every month to pay part of the staff. The state and another foundation also contribute. “That is very important, because that way you can retain good staff.”
Heaven
In the Ngorongoro district they often talk about Frans Senff, who also got behind the controls of a small plane to fly to remote mission posts and provide assistance there. Sieuwke Hartmans: “A priest said to me, if Frans does not go to heaven, no one will go to heaven.”