Posts tagged women

Get your questions ready! Dr. Helen Bygrave is holding a Reddit AMA on Women and HIV around the world TODAY at 12pm ET: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/3lfm24/im_dr_helen_bygrave_hiv_advisor_for_doctors/

As part of the Wonderwomen of Gaza project, 28 year old Wafa’a shares her views about being a woman in Gaza. “The actions of Gaza’s women speak for themselves. We don’t need words. But I like to call the situation in Gaza not complicated or difficult. I rather call it challenging because we can still manage to study, and can find work. It makes us flexible here and we are very strong. We have hopes and we manage to do many things. I hope for peace. I hope that we can deliver our message to the world that we are here, we exist and we deserve to live. It’s to change the - I wouldn’t say bad - but strong image that people have about us around the world.”  http://bit.ly/1CFQJnw

Photo by Yann Libessart/MSF

Did you know you don’t have to be medical to work in the field with MSF? Ask our recruiters anything you want to know May 15 at 2pm EDT/6pm GMT on Reddit. More information: http://bit.ly/1uq6oQk

Photo by Karl Nawezi/MSF

Taghry and Masaya, along with six children, were among the 15,000 people who fled the conflict in Mali in January 2013 and sought safety in neighboring Mauritania. They arrived with nothing other than the clothes on their backs and are now completely dependent on humanitarian aid….On arriving in Bassikounou, an ultrasound confirmed Taghry was pregnant with quadruplets. The MSF medical team made the quick decision to perform a caesarean section. Taghry gave birth to three small but healthy boys and one healthy girl. At first, they are simply called Baby 1, 2, 3 and 4. 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

Photo by Yann Libessart

From Margaret Barclay, MSF midwife: “In the Philippines, the (Typhoon Haiyan) disaster destroyed everything and people did not know whether health care was accessible or not. The first woman who delivered with us in Tacloban would have died if she had not received care. …She was very sick, had been displaced by the typhoon and was living in a tent. Her labor was obstructed and she had also developed pre-eclampsia, a hypertensive disorder, which is a severe complication of pregnancy.” 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

Photo by Jean Pierre Amigo

From Rhoda, 24 years old, in South Sudan: “I was going to the health clinic in Bor town during my pregnancy. When we had to flee the area, I ran for my life, but being eight months pregnant, it was not easy. This was the toughest time of my life. My husband was stuck in Juba and I was in the bush convinced I was going to lose our child. One night, my mother and I got into one big boat with 100 others crossing to Awerial county. …The journey was awful, lying in dirty water mixed with animal feces. When we arrived to Minkaman, my mother found a small area with a few trees, big enough for the two of us to settle. Soon I started having some persistent pains and my mum helped me deliver a baby boy.” 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

Photo by Yann Libessart

From Mildrène, 14 years old, in Haiti: “My family lived in Solino before the earthquake, not well, but we had a roof and could sleep without fear. On January 12, 2010, our house was destroyed. … After that night we lived in a displaced camp called Accra. One day I went out to buy food for my dad. On my way a man asked where I was going and gave me money to buy him a meal too. When I came back with his plate, he took my hand and told me he would kill my parents if I did not do whatever he asks. I knew one of his friends had already killed a man in the camp and I was very scared. Then he raped me.” 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

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

Photo by Juan Carlos Tomasi/MSF

Years of political and military instability in CAR have left the country in a chronic state of humanitarian crisis, particularly as it pertains to public health. The Ministry of Health has almost no presence outside of Bangui, the capital. There is just one doctor per 55,000 people and one nurse or midwife per 7,000 residents, according the United Nations, and most of those are in the capital. Read more: http://bit.ly/1exTtTP

Go to http://bit.ly/18mbxOU and sign up for our monthly e-newsletter! Photo by Peter Casaer

Photo by Yasuyoshi-Chiba

Tuesday at 8pm EDT! MSF Delivers: Join MSF for an online discussion of the challenges of delivering life-saving obstetric care to women in the countries where we work. The panel will include MSF obstetrician/gynecologists and a nurse-midwife who have worked in countries throughout Africa as well as in Central and South Asia and Oceania.

Register now! http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/events/public/event.cfm?id=564

Photo by Jacob Zocherman

These two women in the maternity ward of Bria hospital in Central African Republic have just had miscarriages. One of them must recover on the floor because there are so few beds in so few health facilities in the area. This photo was taken shortly before MSF opened an emergency project in Bria.

An MSF nurse performs an ante-natal consultation for a pregnant woman in one of MSF’s makeshift hospitals in Syria. “Before this war people in Syria had good quality health care,” said MSF surgeon Steve Rubin. “Many Syrians really want that care again. But in this area, other than us, all the other medical facilities are doing war trauma. So they come here because this is their only option.”

Photo by Cathy Janssens/MSF