Posted on 21 May, 2012
The difficult lean season in Chad has already begun, and MSF is working to treat malnutrition as quickly as possible. MSF teams screen for cases of severe malnutrition and distribute ready-to-use therapeutic food to malnourished children.
A Mission in Syria
In late March, an MSF team crossed the Turkish border into Syria in an effort to provide medical aid in the Idlib region. The two-person team was composed of a surgeon and an anesthesiologist. To evaluate needs, they also sought to observe the treatment that wounded patients were receiving.
Their first observation was that medical workers were so terrorized that they would offer only first aid in cases of extreme emergency. To treat broken bones, for example, they would simply use makeshift splints. In dealing with hemorrhage, they applied compression bandages even when they had access to technical resources enabling them to provide more appropriate and complete care.
“They told us that the risk was too high, the MSF surgeon explained. We were told that, ’being caught with a patient is worse than being caught with a weapon.’ A Syrian colleague also told me that that meant death both for the patient and for him.”
Photo:Staff performing surgery in the Idlib area of Syria, while it was still possible to do so.
Syria 2012 © MSF