MSF in Mali: “We Will Not Abandon Our Patients Now”

In the town of Gao, in conflict-riven northern Mali, an average of 120 patients make their way to the MSF Wabaria and Sossokoira health centers each day. Even though the rainy season is over, 70 percent come with malaria, a potentially fatal parasitic disease that leaves sufferers exhausted from high fevers and uncontrollable shivers. Despite the war, it is malaria that the MSF medical teams in the region are battling most fiercely. It remains the leading cause of death in the country, and it is particularly dangerous for children under the age of five.

“Although there is a hospital and 10 health centers in and around Gao town, this is for a population of 400,000, and we realized that some people still had no access to medical care. Our patients tell us that all they hope for is peace. And we are with them; we stayed here throughout the air strikes, we will not abandon our patients now. We hope that the health system will develop and eventually replace us. But until then, we will stay and ensure that the people of Gao and Ansongo continue to have access to quality and free health care,” says Dr. Jose Bafoa, MSF’s medical team leader in Gao. 

Photo:A makeshift hospital in Idlib Governorate, destroyed by armed forces at the end of March 2012. Syria 2012 © MSF

In Syria’s Idlib Province, Little Medical Care For Civilians Living Under Intense Bombing

In the north of Syria’s Idlib Province, civilians are terrorized by a strategy of intense and indiscriminate bombing and the wounded face few options for emergency medical care, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.

As fighting intensifies north of the road linking Aleppo and Idlib provinces, Syrian government forces are bombing towns and villages indiscriminately, endangering the lives of ordinary people.  An MSF team returned from one northern city in Idlib, which was repeatedly bombed over recent months. The only medical facility still functioning there is a secretly run clinic, staffed by local people and a few Syrian health workers.

“Since we’re prohibited from working on the side of the government forces, we’re not able to take an impartial view of the situation,” said Dr. Mego Terzian, MSF’s emergency operations manager. “But what we’re witnessing is a real strategy of terror, orchestrated by the Syrian government, against the people of this area.”

Photo: The grounds the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, seen at dusk. Afghanistan 2012 © Michael Goldfarb

Letter from North Afghanistan: “This Is Life and Death Under a Magnifying Glass”

Nurse Brett Adamson recently completed a six-month mission in Kunduz,Afghanistan, where Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs a hospital providing emergency surgery to people with life-threatening injuries. Below is some of what he wrote while he was there:

Today we watched a child die. We had done all that we could, but there are always limits. He was hit by a speeding motorcycle, cracking his skull.

The child was hooked up to a ventilation machine. We have four in our intensive care unit and they have saved many lives—of people hurt in bomb blasts, wounded by gun shots, or with head traumas. We kept the child alive to see if he might recover—buying time for healing, for the family to pray, for us to hope. Unfortunately he didn’t make it, but thankfully the majority do.

This child was hit by a speeding motorcycle. His family is present when I turn off the ventilator and pull the tube from his lips to see if he can breathe on his own. We have talked with them many times about his extremely poor chances of survival. If a child stops breathing, we know the bleeding or swelling inside the head has progressed to the point that almost all brain function has been lost.

The boy cannot keep breathing on his own. His bed is surrounded by people—his family, two doctors, a nurse, the nurse from the morning shift who has stayed on—all eager to do anything possible for the dying child. The child is gasping for breath, so we relieve his distress with drugs; a push on a syringe eases his suffering. Family members hold his hand, a nurse washes his face.

This is life and death under a magnifying glass. The boy gasps occasionally and again we settle him, his heart rate nearly stopping between each gasp. Family members ritually trickle a tiny amount of water into his lips. We suction his mouth and we comfort the family. Eventually he slips away.

We wash him, dress him, tie his jaw closed and his toes together, and wrap him in a clean sheet. A brother sheds tears.

The family wants to take him now. The father thanks us for our efforts, wraps his child in a blanket and carries him outside to an old station wagon borrowed from a friend. I hold his child for him as he climbs into the back. I pass him the child and he cradles him and they drive away to their home in the mountains.

We clean the bed, clean the equipment and attend to the other patients. Then we make up the bed with fresh sheets, and within a couple of hours it is filled with someone new.