Quotes from the field

"MSF did live up to its set purpose.  They were a friend, and not just any but one willing to risk the comforts and lives of their volunteers."

-Thanks from Port Harcourt

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Quotes from the field

"I have never seen burn patients like we have had here over the winter.  Often the burn victims are, again, women and children, as the women prepare the meals over open flame stoves and the children play around their mothers.  We often had multiple victims from the same families.  While we do out best, we lost quite a few of the patients to infections or they were simply too badly burned to survive.  All we can do is provide sterile dressings, increased calorie foods, and hydration.  It has been hard to watch, and I am glad this season is pretty much behind us.

Certainly, the most difficult part of this mission, for me, has been the child deaths.  Of course, everyone dies, but I am not accustomed to so many pediatric deaths."

-Georgann (MSF nurse in Afghanistan)

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Quotes from the field

"Life happens to you even when you work in the field.  In MSF you work to alleviate human suffering.  You strive to help and support people as much as possible, every day.  In the midst of this, it is easy to forget that you too are only human, that on occasions you too will need support."

-Minja (A mental health officer)

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Battling a Measles Epidemic in Northeast Congo

Above is a video produced by MSF about a dangerous measles outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo following a malaria epidemic.

Living in Emergency

Today my uncle gave me a project that I will be working on until I leave in two weeks.  I am creating a document comprised of MSF's videos and multimedia, powerpoints, books, reports and newsletters, merchandise, and social media that can then be added to the website under the public events tab.  This addition to the website will allow people to do their own screenings of MSF videos, or lead discussions about MSF's work.  The document is called "Share MSF With Your Community."  Along with creating the document, I am also watching a number of the films on the list to further familiarize myself with the organization.

I just finished watching the first film on the list, Living in Emergency.  This film is a heart wrenching documentary about three MSF doctors in Africa.  Two are in Liberia in 2003 after a 15 year long civil war working at Mamba Point Hospital, a MSF hospital, which, at the time, was the only free emergency hospital for a city of one million people.  The third doctor is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The film focuses on the impact that these missions place upon the doctors who volunteer.  The doctors describe the missions as being not what they expected, unimaginable, indescribable, rewarding, and draining.  "Thousands apply to MSF each year, but given the challenges of the work, MSF accepts very few volunteers.  From these few who are chosen, only a small number advances beyond their first mission" (Living in Emergency).  Being a doctor in the field is difficult for many reasons: the doctors come in at the very last minute to try and fix what should have been fixed years ago, they become responsible for far more than what they were responsible for in their home countries, there is no limit between what is personal and what is professional, they must know their personal limits as doctors, and they have to quickly decide when and when not to operate.  

Of all the previously stated difficulties, one trumps them all: being able to recognize when to leave.  When MSF decides to pull a mission out of a country, the doctors have to notify the natives.  The natives often feel they are being abandoned and beg the doctors not to leave.  MSF wants to help those in need, but is unequipped to fix the underlying social and political problems that cause and maintain crisis.  When the emergency and immediacy dies down, that is the indication that MSF's work is finished and it is time for them to move on.  Although, the end of crisis does not mean the end of suffering.  

Many doctors go abroad to fix people, but also to try to heal themselves.  MSF missions, and humanitarian work in general, change you and your priorities in one way or another.  It is what you do after your MSF mission that ultimately defines you.

"Doctors Without Borders and the Value of Life"

 

Last Thursday I attended a presentation at Fordham University given by Peter Redfield about his book, Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders.  The presentation was open to the public but mainly consisted of Fordham students and MSF reps.  Redfield centered the talk around defining the 'value of life' and what it means to MSF.  He then displayed the following quote on the screen by Hannah Arendt: "For what matters today is not immortality of life, but that life is the highest good."  MSF believes that 'life is the highest good' and therefore will do whatever is humanly possible to save them.  

MSF was founded in 1971 as a French alternative to Red Cross.  It began as an emergency oriented relief organization and has more or less stayed true to its initial statutes, with the exception of the hospital that is being built in Haiti.  MSF works to save lives that are in crisis and therefore does not pick and choose which life to save based on age, social standing, genders, or defining characteristics.   In the field the doctors are constantly in a state of triage where patients are treated based on their bodily state.  

Redfield described MSF to be anti-utilitarian, to possess egalitarian ethos, and to have realist problems of limits.  "Life is a categorical value and cannot be sacrificed for anything," said Redfield, articulating MSF's moral philosophy on saving lives. 

MSF has often been criticized for being palliative.  It is geared towards short term relief instead of long term development.  This has to do with limited resources, both manpower and medical supplies, a focused mission centered around crisis relief, and the fact that there are other organizations whose main goal is to train the locals or build hospitals in developing countries.  

This presentation was great! It taught me some basics about the company but focused on why MSF does the work that it does, which was really what I wanted to know.  I hope to attend more presentations like this during the rest of my project!

Indian Supreme Court rejects Novartis Patent Case

Monday April 1, 2013 was my first day of work at MSF.  It was also a landmark day in the International Health Care World as the Indian Supreme Court rejected the Novartis Patent Case.  When I first entered the office I could tell something was going on.  Men and women were running in and out of colleagues' offices notifying them of the triumphant news.  

Novartis created a new version of the cancer medicine, Glivec, and tried to patent it.  Novartis was denied this attempt because it violated Section 3(d) of India's patent law.  Section 3(d) states that patents will not be granted for modifications of preexisting drugs, only for truly "genuine inventions" according to an article in the Huffington Post.  In a MSF press release Dr. Unni Karunakara, MSF's international president said, “This is a huge relief for the millions of patients and doctors in developing countries who depend on affordable medicines from India, and for treatment providers like MSF.  The Supreme Court's decision now makes patents on the medicines that we desperately need less likely. This marks the strongest possible signal to Novartis and other multinational pharmaceutical companies that they should stop seeking to attack the Indian patent law.” 

The Novartis case brought the publicity that MSF needed to educate ordinary citizens of the wrongs they are trying to right.