The Order’s Austrian Health Service (MHDA) observed its 50th Anniversary this week with a special Mass celebrated by Bishop Kapellari at St.Stephen’s Cathedral, with over 2000 members and volunteers of the Service, and in the presence of the Austrian President Dr Heinz Fischer, the President of Hungary, Dr. László Sólyom, the Grand Chancellor of the Order of Malta, Jean-Pierre Mazery and the Procurator of the Austrian Grand Prior, Dr Norbert Salburg-Falkenstein.

Spontaneous support becomes organised activity

During the autumn of 1956 and the revolution in Hungary, support centres for refugees in Burgenland and Vienna were set up spontaneously. The following year, MHDA developed into the Ambulance Corps of the Grand Priory of Austria. Today the service has grown to become the Order’s most significant activity in Austria, with 1400 members currently in its ranks. In 2006, they worked 110,000 hours on volunteer projects, with another 60,000 devoted to behind-the-scenes administration. The MHDA works largely without public money, financing its activities through donations and collections. One third of its financial means is generated by Ambulance Service and First Aid Courses. The Commander of the MHDA, Hubertus von Trauttenberg, calculates: “The donations and benefits drawn from having volunteer help is equal to the annual output of a medium-size company with 100 staff, material costs of 1.5 million Euro and personnel costs of over 3 million Euro.”

The service continues, every day and always

The MHDA works in a variety of fields. Special care is given to those who have fallen through the social services net and those in need of the personal attention, so important for the sick and especially the institutionalised sick. Members concentrate on nursing, care for the handicapped in hospitals and during pilgrimages, to Lourdes, Rome and Assisi, escorting the lonely to outside activities, and giving comfort to the elderly housebound – providing over 30,000 hours in service every year. The Ambulance and First Aid Service offers relief for large-scale operations during disasters.

The organisation arranges multi-level training, starting from basic first aid, and progressing to full medical rescue service, so that professional relief in times of natural disaster will always be offered.

Anniversary highlight

From 7 – 9 September, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Austria. Members of the MHDA have already had the honour of being at attention with an emergency surgical team during the Papal Visits in 1983, 1988 and 1998. This year they will have that honour again, both at the main events in Vienna and on pilgrimage to Mariazell.