Posts tagged clinic
MSF Communications Officer Charlotte Morris spent two weeks in the Bokoro region of Chad, 300km east of the nation’s capital, N’djamena. She was there to gather interviews, photos, and video that MSF can use to communicate with the public about the malnutrition crisis in the country. Whilst there, she noted the increasing number of cases related to malnutrition, specifically among children under the age of five.
When Charlotte first arrived to visit an outpatient clinic, she was overwhelmed by roughly 400-500 mothers, all with malnourished babies. She was ready to begin conducting interviews with the young mothers about the crisis. Understandably, many mothers did not want to speak to Charlotte, for various reasons. Until she met Hawa.
At 29 years old, Hawa was visiting the clinic because her seven months old daughter, Mikaela, was extremely malnourished and had a respiratory illness. She decided to visit the MSF clinic because she was told that there were people there giving out ‘Plumpy Nut’, in addition to helping Mikaela with her health problems.The good news for Hawa was that Mikaela was now better. Her respiratory infection cleared, she no longer had diarrhea, and she gained enough weight to be discharged from the clinic. Unfortunately, many children were not so lucky.
Many of the children’s health was so bad, that they needed to be moved to outpatient clinics, anywhere from a half and hour to three hours away. To Charlotte, it was shocking to see so many others who had sick children, refuse care. However, many of these young mothers have seen some kids recover by themselves, so they did not need outpatient. Additionally, these mother, often times, have other children at home to take care off, so the time and distance commitments seemed all too yielding.
By the end of her two weeks, it was clear to Charlotte that the malnutrition crisis in Chad is not a one-off emergency, it’s chronic.These cases are not only caused by lack of food due to harsh conditions, but also lack of education as to what to feed the children and the importance of hygiene. Overshadowing all of that, there are various cultural practices that can make vulnerable, malnourished children more ill.
It’s a huge challenge for MSG to attempt to tackle, but if it were not for the perseverance of the MSF staff and the resilience of mothers and their children, this crisis would certainly worsen. As someone said to Charlotte while she was there, “you’ve got to be tough to live in Chad.”
Five years after the earthquake in Haiti, many people are still living in overcrowded conditions in displaced persons’ camps, putting women at risk of sexual violence. This year, MSF set up a new sexual violence project in Port-au-Prince. Every single case we saw was complicated and touching and difficult and emotional. http://bit.ly/1NPBNqA
Photo by Ashley Gilbertson/VII Photo
At MSF’s cholera treatment clinic in the Carrefour area of Port-au-Prince, the head doctor, who comes from Ghana, treated this emergency patient on Wednesday. People continue to deal with this deadly disease that first appeared in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The photographer said: “It’s inspiring, though, knowing that every single person in the hospitalization ward will survive because they’re receiving medical attention. It’s been some time since I’ve worked with MSF, and I forgot how much I respect the organization and how moved I am by their work.”
Tracey Hansel, a U.S. doctor, just returned from her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), at Drouillard hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Part of her time was spent in the hospital’s burn unit, the only free burn care available in the country. She spoke about the one of the best moments of her months there.
Photo: Chad 2012 © Florian Lems
MSF Blog: The Clinic Under the Tree
In the shade of a tree, women and children await care at a feeding center run by an MSF mobile unit in Chad. MSF teams make weekly visits to remote communities in Chad to provide much-needed health care to these populations.
With this clinic we definitely saved lives. People were in real difficulties in the bush: not enough food, mosquitoes biting people, everyone drinking very bad water. Our clinic was not perfect, but it was better than nothing, and we saved lives.
Photo: Displaced people use plastic sheeting to transport supplies along the Pibor river. South Sudan 2012 © Robin Meldrum/MSF
Voice From the Field: A Clinic Deep in the Bush
David Bude is a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinical officer working in a remote outreach health clinic in the village of Lekwongole, near Pibor town in South Sudan’s violence-wracked Jonglei State. When fighting erupted in Lekwongole in August 2012, David fled along with the rest of the population. Hiding deep in the bush, he used his medical skills to save lives in exceptionally difficult circumstances.
Fleeing for our Lives
We ran from Lekwongole when there was shooting. I was frightened, and so was everyone else, because of what we had seen—because of the dead people.
I said to my wife that if we stay we will be killed. It is better to run to the bush because we know where we can hide ourselves.
We crossed the river using plastic sheeting as boats. We tied the lengths of plastic and put grass inside to make it more stable, so it would not collapse when we stepped inside. We ferried our children to the other riverbank, and then we ran, all of us, with our children and families. We didn’t have time to take any food or even any clothes or medicines. Everything was left behind.
Deep in the Bush
We were deep in the bush. There was thick grass and undergrowth everywhere, no roads or tracks. I was scared—everyone was scared. You can’t see what is in the thick tall grass, and there are lots of dangerous things: snakes, hyenas, we heard lions at night. And there were the rebels and militia. You don’t know what will happen at night, or even during the daytime.
The area was flooded, so there was lots of water everywhere. Most people were just sleeping under trees without anything for shelter. Some had some plastic sheeting with them and when it rained they would invite other people’s children to take shelter. We helped each other because we were all there in the bush together.
Photo: Mud roads in Mattar, Ethiopia make transport of patients and supplies difficult. © Kate Chapman, MSF.
MSF nurse, Kate, on overcoming hurdles to get her patients to treatment:
“On Wednesday, the river had risen so much that the area where we land the boat in town had broken its banks and flooded half the town. This left our only landing point around 800 meters from the road on the main dock, wedged between the many huge open top, steel cargo boats being loaded with contraband destined for South Sudan.
The clinic in Adura had been busy with over 150 patients. On the way back we had one patient for transfer in the car, an old lady with TB. We came across some men carrying a very unwell looking man. We stopped, found him to be critical, packed him in the car and made our way back to Mattar.
I called ahead to our base and asked them to send the boat with a stretcher and to meet us on the road. Of course no one was there when we arrived so leaving the patients by the car we carried the heavy boxes of drugs and equipment to town, meandering through the heavily bogged path leading to the river. This is very difficult as just walking without carrying anything is a challenge in itself on the treacherously slippery Mattar mud. I am twice as good at not falling over compared to how I was at the beginning of the mission, but compared to the sure footed team, I’m still a joke!”
Amal’s harrowing story of escape from fighting to a mobile clinic in South Sudan.
Amal is 28 years old, and a mother of three. She escaped violence along with around 35,000 refugees by crossing the border into South Sudan. Amal was thin, weak, and coughing, when she was admitted into the MSF’s mobile clinic, called Kilometer 18 in Upper Nile State.
“Where we are from, there is only war.”
-Amal’s cousin, Hassan, tells her story as she is too weak to speak.
“Despite the rain, mud, the MSF clinic in Batil, South Sudan is always full.”
Follow Gregory Vandendaelen @gregvdd, Comms advisor for MSF, currently tweeting from Batil and Doro camps in South Sudan.