Love took Ephrem from a refugee camp to the lecture hall
Between Ethiopia and Leiden
Raised by his grandmother and grandfather, trained as a doctor, the medical director of a camp for Eritrean refugees: Ephrem Tesfay was anything but a typical student when he arrived in Leiden in 2019. Still, he fit in well with the ‘youngsters’.
‘The age gap took some getting used to at first, but my programme also helped me a lot’, Tesfay recalls. He made lasting friendships not only in the Health, Ageing and Vitality (now Society) master’s degree programme but also in his current job.
Growing up in Ethiopia
Tesfay sees his arrival in the Netherlands as the start of his second life. His first life began in Tigray, a northern region of Ethiopia that borders Eritrea. He grew up with his already elderly grandparents, surrounded by aunts and uncles. ‘They inspired me to go to university. What’s more, my interest in geriatric health care came from watching my grandparents struggle with their health.’
'‘Working in that refugee camp humbled me’
Tesfay decided to study medicine and then worked for several years as a general practitioner in hospitals and clinics in Ethiopia. He eventually returned to Tigray, where he ended up working as a medical director and doctor in a reception centre for Eritrean refugees. ‘Working in that refugee camp humbled me. We operated under difficult conditions in the desert and faced all kinds of dangers, from snake bites to outbreaks of infectious diseases. And, of course, we had to care for war victims who had experienced the most terrible things.’
Meeting his wife
Although his work in the camp sometimes overwhelmed him, he gained a wealth of experience and met his future wife. ‘She was a Dutch woman who worked for Doctors without Borders in the camp. This professional relationship turned into a romance, but then of course she went back to the Netherlands. We had a long-distance relationship for several years, but eventually we decided that I would move to the Netherlands. That decision was accelerated by the political tensions in Ethiopia; it was not safe for me to stay there.’
To have his medical qualifications recognised in the Netherlands, he would have to study medicine again for several years. So to return to work more quickly, he decided to enrol in the master’s programme in Health, Ageing and Vitality in 2019. This choice was also motivated by his interest in geriatric health care. ‘That year taught me a lot about the Dutch healthcare system and how to conduct research. I mostly had a lot of clinical experience. The master’s programme taught me a new way of looking at health care, and I still benefit from that.’
A job via classmates
Tesfay graduated just as the coronavirus pandemic began, which made his job search difficult. He worked for a while as a coronavirus tester, and he and his wife welcomed their first child. After spending some time out of work, two former classmates knocked on his door: might he be interested in working for Vilans, a centre of expertise in long-term care? ‘I applied and got the job as a researcher’, Tesfay says.
He is currently involved in two research projects of which he is particularly proud. ‘We are investigating the situation of foreign care workers in Dutch care homes. How are they recruited? How do you make them feel at home? We hope to use the results to help health care institutions improve their recruitment policies.’ Together with colleagues, Tesfay is also researching how knowledge about proper collaboration between health care professionals and informal caregivers can be used even more effectively in practice. The study is being conducted with an eye to the future. ‘In the Netherlands, we will have to increasingly rely on that type of informal care, so how can you improve the processes around it?’
‘My country’
Earlier in the interview, Tesfay referred to his native Ethiopia as ‘back home’. But when asked if it was still his home, he had to think it over for a while. ‘The country has changed tremendously since I left. Things have happened, like a war in Tigray, that I cannot reconcile myself with. My image of Ethiopia has faded. I have a Dutch wife and two very Dutch children, and I have a Dutch passport. So this is my country now.’