MSF worldwide work highlight (14/5 – 27/5)

 

MSF strongly condemns the destruction at its hospital in Pibor town, South Sudan, purposefully conducted to render the hospital inoperable. The MSF hospital is the only hospital facility for Pibor county.3,000 patients have been treated over the first three months of the year in this hospital.

 

Yida camp in Unity State today hosts nearly 75,000 people. MSF currently runs one primary health care center (average 10,000 consultations per month), a 60 beds hospital, a malnutrition treatment unit and has mobile teams that move throughout the Yida camp. MSF is also involved in water supply and latrines construction. From May 2012 to May 2013, MSF treated nearly 3,000 severely malnourished children in Yida.

 

Overcrowding and poor living conditions in Iraq’s Domeez camp have led to a recent deterioration in refugees’ health. MSF has doubled its number of staff, who are currently providing 3,500 consultations per week, running emergency vaccination campaigns including vaccinating over 19,500 people aged between six months and 29 years against measles in April, and going from tent to tent with supplies of clean drinking water. MSF teams are currently building 140 new latrines in the most neglected areas of the camp and plan to rehabilitate latrines and pump away stagnant water to prevent outbreaks of disease.

 

MSF inaugurated a new clinic in Kibera South on 16 May in Nairobi. The centre offers comprehensive primary healthcare and maternity services integrated with the management of chronic diseases like HIV, targeting one of the most vulnerable populations in Nairobi.

 

MSF is the only provider of free healthcare in Kibera, and already operates another free health clinic as well as a centre for victims of sexual violence.

 

MSF is treating survivors of an attack on Mpeti in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The village, which is home to around one thousand people, was attacked by men armed with bayonets, machetes and wooden clubs. MSF supports a health centre in Mpeti that treats around 300 patients every week, mostly for diseases such as malaria. Since the beginning of the year, fighting and insecurity in the area has at times prevented the team from accessing patients in need.

 

Fighting with heavy weapons between the Congolese army (FARDC) and the rebel group M23 to the west of the provincial capital Goma resumed on 21 May. Many people who were already displaced from their homes after earlier waves of violence are now caught between the shelling and gunfire.In light of this, MSF calls on all parties to refrain from using force around IDP camps and in areas housing civilians.

 

In Burundi, women are particularly affected by the lack of access to health care. According to the World Health Organization, 4000 of them die in childbirth each year and about 1,200 develop obstetric fistula. In 2012, MSF surgeons performed more than 300 fistula repairs and began training two Burundian doctors to perform this operation.