Posts tagged international women's day
Because I’m A Woman…
Women & girls forced to flee face health risks & further danger on their journey, simply because they are women. Hear their stories in our special International Women’s Day feature: http://becauseimawoman.msf.org
A Sisterhood of Women in an Afghanistan Hospital #IWD2017
On International Women’s Day 2017, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is highlighting the challenges that women in Afghanistan face during pregnancy and childbirth. #HerVoiceIsMyVoice
Severine Caluwaerts is an MSF OBGYN in Khost, Afghanistan, at MSF’s largest maternity project. This is her seventh time in Khost.
“I’m doing exactly the job that made me study medicine so many years ago, to help people who most need help,” said Caluwaerts. “Afghanistan is a war-torn country. Our patients are continuously confronted with the war. Families lose husbands, children die, mothers die. And what MSF is offering them is a safe place to deliver.”
“ I see Afghan women, Afghan doctors, Afghan midwives. I see them from doing their first delivery to becoming really experienced and two of our national doctors still here, Dr Sadia and Dr Farida, I taught them basically their first Caesarean section and now so many years later they are independent.
It’s like a sisterhood of women. It’s Afghan women taking care of Afghani women and Afghani babies.”
Photo by Eymeric Laurent-Gascoin
From Sarah Dina, MSF mental health officer in Pakistan: “Imagine that on your month-long trek across the mountains to safety, you have little food and water. You have blisters on your feet from your shoes at the start; you have cuts on your feet from walking barefoot at the end. Imagine walking through the snow, up a steep incline, hiding in the shrubbery when you hear a blast. Just imagine that as you walk, you see small children along the way who have been abandoned by their parents because it was impossible to carry them any longer through such rough terrain and in such harsh conditions. I tried to imagine how these parents felt. But I stopped myself. It’s too painful to think about their pain.” Saturday is International Women’s Day. On that day, and every day, thousands of women worldwide will leave their homes to flee war or persecution. The fact that they are women makes their ordeal even more harrowing. Read this and other stories: http://bit.ly/1fLR5fE
The Avoidable Crisis of Maternal Death
MSF makes it a priority to provide lifesaving, emergency obstetric care in both acute and chronic humanitarian crises. MSF teams strive to address the five main causes of maternal death: hemorrhage, sepsis, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders, and obstructed labour.
In a conflict or crisis, pregnant women are even more vulnerable because health services have collapsed, are inadequate, or are totally non-existent. But these women need access to quality emergency obstetric care whether they live in a conflict zone, in a refugee camp, or under plastic sheeting after a devastating earthquake.
In fact, they need the same help that all pregnant women facing a complication need: access to appropriate medical assistance—skilled medical staff, drugs, and equipment—to save their life and the life of their baby.
Conflict, epidemics, natural disasters, or the complete breakdown of a country’s health system are crises faced by MSF’s millions of patients around the world every day. But a maternal death: that’s the avoidable crisis.
Infographic by Will Owen
Urgent Delivery—Maternal Death: The Avoidable Crisis
Every day, approximately 1,000 women die in childbirth or from a pregnancy-related complication. Maternal death can occur at any time in pregnancy, but delivery is by far the most dangerous time for both the mother and the baby. The vast majority of these deaths can be prevented if access to emergency obstetric care is ensured.
Doctors Without Borders makes it a priority to provide lifesaving, emergency obstetric care in both acute and chronic humanitarian crises. In the organization’s emergency activities, teams strive to address the five main causes of maternal death: hemorrhage, sepsis, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders, and obstructed labour.
South Sudan 2011 © Avril Benoit/MSF
A mother and child at MSF’s supplementary feeding distribution in Abathok.
DRC: “I Got on the Motorbike With the Midwife”
Doctors Without Borders makes it a priority to provide life-saving, emergency obstetric care in both acute and chronic humanitarian crises. Fifteen percent of all pregnancies worldwide will experience a life-threatening complication. The most critical moment is delivery: the majority of maternal deaths occur just before, during, or just after delivery, often from complications that cannot be predicted. It is at this point that the provision of quality obstetric care is vital to save women’s lives. The majority of maternal deaths are avoidable when access to emergency obstetric care is ensured.
View MSF’s International Women’s Day video on Haiti.
View the International Women’s Day video on South Sudan.
View MSF’s International Women’s Day video on Pakistan.
We know that 15 percent of all pregnancies worldwide will experience a life-threatening complication. Women need access to quality emergency obstetric care whether they live in Sydney, Port-au-Prince, or Mogadishu. The reality is the same for women in a modern hospital in a major city, or for those living in a conflict zone, a refugee camp, or under plastic sheeting following a devastating earthquake.
women’s health advisor for MSF.
As an emergency medical organization, MSF has demonstrated that maternal deaths can be reduced, including during humanitarian crises. The organization has invested significantly in developing the technical and logistical capacity to provide life-saving—and free-of-charge—emergency obstetric care.
Check out the report on Maternal Death: The Avoidable Crisis