Friday, 30 October 2009
Bazar magazine

Visiting Serbia: Grace Nelson and Dr Ernie Bodai

We believe in a better life

The world is small – but not so small that we cannot help each other and look after one another. This is a concept that Mrs. Nelson believes in and the famous American surgeon Dr Bodai, who recently came to Serbia with a completely new program that has already been successfully implemented in the U.S. and which we, as well as women across the world, need in order to help in the fight against breast cancer.

Written by Branka Kovacevic
Photo Dragan Timotijevic

When she came to Serbia for the first time, four years ago, there was only one mammography machine in our country. Mrs Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, visited then many hospitals in Serbia, went to meetings with the Ministry of Health, together with her friend HRH Princess Katherine Karadjordjevic, and very soon realized that she needed to organize help for women in Serbia as breast cancer was had a very high death rate and in was seriously expanding. It was necessary to raise awareness about the importance of a screening program, self examination and the obligatory gynaecologist visit every six months as well as the equipping of health institutions with mammography machines and educating medical staff how to use them. Mrs Nelson returned with her friend Dr Richard Hirsch soon after, and they brought a mammography machine worth 70.000 Euro’s which they donated to Bezanijska Kosa Hospital.

     - I admire Princess Katherine, whom I know for a very long time and I can say that she is a true visionary, she implements her positive ideas into achievements. This is the fourth time that I am her guest and every time she brings me news that means progress. I can see that your Ministry of Health has made a big national campaign for the fight against breast and cervical cancer that unfortunately are taking away most women lives, and this time we, the famous surgeon and my friend Dr Bodai and myself, have come here with a new project for the fight against breast cancer, which has proven to be very successful and which we would like to implement in your system. Dr Bodai is the creator of this project, a person that has been treating patients suffering from this disease in America for decades, and is now on a mission to tell all the women in the world that examination is the best prevention
- I have been a surgeon for the past 28 years, from which the last 9 I have dedicated to research and treatment of breast cancer – says Dr Bodai. I only operate patients that suffer from this cruel disease and unfortunately have to say that the death rate has not drastically decreased in the past 50 years. What I mean is that women that are diagnosed with cancer in late stage do not have more a chance to survive compared to women who were diagnosed the same five decades ago. The quality of life has improved but the death rate is still high and unfortunately certain. This is why it is important to detect this disease in its early stages. As a surgeon I have operated on a few thousand women, faced with various family life dramas and I came to realize that we urgently need more money for research in order to find the cure for this vicious disease. Reading literature and preparing for one of the lectures I held in California, I came across data that breast cancer as a disease existed in Egyptian times and as we all know the cure has not been discovered yet. I realized that it would be most effective if society would get involved in one unique project that would benefit everyone. Soon after I came up with an idea to print a postage stamp that would cost a little bit more that the regular postage stamp we usually buy in order to send a letter or a package, and consciously contribute to this action, where the money raised would go straight into a foundation for breast cancer research. 

     In the beginning Dr Bodais vision was not accepted by the people he needed support from. Although he tried to explain that this was a Humanitarian foundation, they were afraid that if they approve the printing of this post stamp where the funds would be used exclusively for research for breast cancer other foundations might ask for same kind of help. Exactly 13 years ago, in 1996. Dr Bodai started lobbying the American Congress with the aim to make his idea become a legal act. After one and a half years of lobbying, many trips to Washington, speeches held, consulting, this law was passed. So far, approximately 800 million stamps were sold and 72 million dollars were raised making this stamp the most sold in history of US Post Office. Ironically, the public postal service officials thought that no one would buy this stamp, but it turned out that Dr Bodai was a true visionary. It could simply be that that he had a very human approach starting from the fact that we all want the cure for this deathly disease to be discovered as early as possible.

- People were deciding on a voluntary basis which stamp they were going to purchase – continues Dr Bodai, and all money is directed to scientific research important for cancer treatment in general.  Expensive genetic research has been conducted that otherwise would have been impossible due to the lack of funds. They enabled to exactly foresee which women would react chemotherapy and which should not receive it. There are two hundred thousand women in America every year that are diagnosed with invasive cancer form and almost every one of them has been subjected to this very aggressive method. Since this program had a big success in America, Dr Ernie Bodai together with Grace Nelson, wife of Senator Nelson and woman involved in many humanitarian projects, came up with a great idea – they decided to spread the program to other countries. A program called “Global Travel” was first introduced in Hungary as its creator is emotionally connected to this country. Namely, Dr Bodai was born in 1951 in Budapest, and his family has lived in a shelter for one year, trying to survive the bombing, during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. After that very difficult time, they had immigrated to America where Ernie Bodai graduated in medicine at the University of California. Soon after, he became the chief of surgery in Sacramento where he lived for fifteen years. He wrote 250 scientific works in the field of medicine and published 5 books of which 4 are focused on breast cancer.

   Considering that the doctor is permanently employed and has his patients, he uses his free time to travel the world and promote the “postage stamp for breast cancer”. From Belgrade, where he was present at the contract signing of cooperation on this project between the American and Serbian Post Office, he travelled directly to Jordan

- Every country within the “Global Travel” project receives a preliminary design as a gift from us. This small piece of paper represents a true piece of art. Diana Martimis is on the photograph, the protector of women, who is photographed in a position that women take when they come to have a mammography check-up, at the same time very subtly showing that she had surgery where her right breast was removed. The stamp is printed in rainbow colours carrying a message that breast cancer attacks women of all nationalities, skin colour and race, and that a six-month check-up must become an obligation.

     Mrs Grace Nelson is a great help to Dr Bodai and his team in implementing this program. As a Senator’s wife, she has been present in American public political life for a long time, especially Florida. She belongs to a third generation born in Jacksonville, Florida, on the border with Georgia.  Her husband is still in the Senate, while Mrs Nelson was the President of the International Club, and has dedicated her life for women rights and friendship between women in the whole world. For more then fifteen years she has been involved in various projects of eradication of famine in the world. Beside America where she and her husband have initiated the Student Forum in Florida that distributes 46.000 fresh vegetables to the hungry, she has saved from hunger and sure death many people in Uganda, Senegal, Mali and Ethiopia that were struck by a catastrophic drought.

  - I realized a long time ago that women have incredible powers – says Grace Nelson. We have the intuition and I believe that if one wants one can change the world. Imagine how united women can make the world better. For the past year I have been working on another program that is aimed on improving the lives of women.Travelling across the world and getting to know various cultures I have seen that women make incredible handicrafts which they have nowhere to sell except in local streets and shops. I have therefore decided to form a global market for selling these handicrafts. We shall soon have a “leader woman”, and in Serbia it can certainly be HRH Princess Katherine who has an incredible vision and desire to help people in need, who together with her foundation can make a decision which handicrafts from Serbia could be sold through internet. We are using modern means of mass communication, like the internet, because we are certain that many women in America will like Serbian women handicrafts and will wish to buy them and so help the budget and quality of life of their family. Travelling the world a lot, partly with my husband, partly within various humanitarian organizations, I have realized that I am in a privileged position and that I need to do something in order to help women. As we all are still just women, regardless of the culture, political system we live in, meridian. Language we speak – we all perfectly understand each other and need to help each other. Better life is possible if we believe in it.