Wanda Błeńska

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Birth Date:
30.10.1911
Death date:
27.11.2014
Length of life:
103
Days since birth:
41088
Years since birth:
112
Days since death:
3439
Years since death:
9
Extra names:
Wanda Błeńska
Categories:
Doctor, Missionary, Officer, WWII participant
Nationality:
 pole
Cemetery:
Set cemetery

Wanda Błeńska (30 October 1911 – 27 November 2014) was a Polish doctor of medicine and missionary.

Błeńska was born in Poznań (Posen) and graduated from the Female High School in Toruń and from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Poznań in 1934. In the years 1934–1936 she worked at the City Hospital in Toruń, then in 1939 at the Marine Hospital in Gdynia. During the war, she was a second lieutenant in the AK (Armia Krajowa), a member of the Pomeranian Griffin, commander of the women's branch circuit of Armia Krajowa in Toruń. After the war, she led the municipal hospital in Toruń. In 1945–1946, she worked at the Medical University of Gdańsk. In 1946 she moved to Hannover. She finished courses of tropical medicine in Hannover, and in 1948 postgraduate studies at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at the University of Liverpool.

In the years 1951–1994, she worked in a leprosy treatment center in Bulubie [near Lake Victoria in Uganda, and in the years 1951–1983 she was the physician-in-chief. Initially a small facility run by the Irish Franciscans, the center grew into a modern therapeutic and training center with 100-bed hospital and a children's branch, diagnostic facilities, homes for lepers and the church, now bearing her name: "Buluba Leprosy Centre, The Wanda Blenska Training Centre". In addition to training for physicians, Dr. Błeńska initiated and organized courses for lepers' caregivers (Leprosy Assistants Training Courses). In Bulubie, Dr. Błeńska worked with other Polish doctors: Dr. Bohdan Kozłowski, Dr. Wanda Marczak-Malczewska, Dr. Elżbieta Kołakowska, Dr. Henryk Nowak. Her long-term work gave her the nickname "Mother of Lepers".

In 1955, Dr. Wanda Błeńska became the first woman to summit Vittorio Emanuele in the Rwenzori.

In 1993, she returned to Poland and settled in Poznań.

In 2011, she was awarded with Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland, Mr. Bronisław Komorowski

 

Source: wikipedia.org

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