Emergency response
Emergency response
Since early February, MdM has been assisting displaced populations in the Rift Valley following the post-election violence. MdM is also helping to restore the health care system in the region, which has been adversely affected by conflict. In Kenya, humanitarian problems are alarming: 30% of health facilities have been closed because of the persistent insecurity and displacement of nursing staff.
An MdM team, which consists of eight people including a doctor and two nurses, provides mobile clinics to displaced people at four sites in the Rift Valley. MdM supports local communities in the region with clinics and dispensaries in order to revive local structures badly affected by people leaving and by the shortages of medicines and equipment. There are approximately 10,000 beneficiaries. Read more
This project is fully funded by DfID
Médecins du Monde has responded to the desperate crisis unfolding in Somalia. For several months Somalia has suffered from an emergency exacerbated by civil conflict. The UN estimates that one million Somalis will need humanitarian aid this year alone, and earlier this week, its refugee agency named Somalia as the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis, even worse than Sudan's war-shattered Darfur region.
More than 6,500 people have been killed and a million displaced from the capital Mogadishu since allied Somali and Ethiopian troops drove Islamists out at the end of 2006, sparking a deadly insurgency. Somalia is now considered one of the world's most dangerous places for foreigners to work. Our team of committed volunteer doctors, nurses and logisticians will focus on Merca, in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia. Because of its proximity to Mogadishu and Benadir, Lower Shabelle receives a steady influx of people fleeing the areas most devastated by violence. Malnutrition and disease are rife. The team will provide primary healthcare with focus on the wellbeing of mother and child through:
- Setting up a free primary health care facility centrally located to ensure access to vulnerable and transient populations, providing drugs and other medical material free of charge.
- Mobilising a team of community workers to target outreach and information campaign to pregnant women and those who have been displaced more than 12 months.
- Improving safety of delivery by providing equipment as well as training to traditional birth attendants.
- Maintaining epidemiological surveillance and training staff to ensure prompt emergency response in the event of initial or recurrent epidemics (with a particular focus on cholera). Medecins du Monde is familiar with the region; in addition to our response to the cholera epidemic in early 2007, we have set up a temporary office set up in neighbouring Kenya. The mission is being entirely financed by the Department for International Aid and Development.
Following the recent heavy fighting in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, Medecins du Monde has sent medical units to the capital, and to Kousseri across the border in Cameroon to help the refugees there. Teams have also left for Kousseri in the north of Cameroon to assess needs and provide medical care and surgery.Between 20,000 to 30,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled the fighting and crossed to Kousseri in Cameroon, a few miles from N'Djamena. To deal with this influx of refugees, Medecins du Monde is deploying an emergency unit to support health provision in Kousseri.
One team left from Paris for Cameroon. It consisted of 5 expatriates (logistics coordinator, doctor, nurse, anaesthetist and surgeon) and will work with national medical and logistic staff. This team will:
- provide primary health care for the refugees in Kousseri region through fixed and mobile consultations. In the event of a rapid return of the refugees to N'Djamena. Medecins du Monde will transfer this team to Chad and adjust it quickly to meet the needs of the people of N'Djamena.
- evaluate the surgical needs of, and provide care for, injured people in Kousseri and N'Djamena.
On Monday, February 18, Medecins du Monde (MdM) teams started distributing medical equipment in the Bani Kayes district of Yemen. This follows 8 months’ staff training within the district. From 18 to 20 February, MdM also organised the training of staff in the district on epidemiological surveillance. Yemen is the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula. Rural areas, where 80% of the population live, are particularly affected by poverty. Primary health care in Yemen currently covers only 42% of the population's needs.
Since June 2007, MdM teams have supported the Yemeni Ministry of Health’s health centre and its 7 care units in the Bani Kayes district which is located in the governorate of Hajja. MdM presently carries out the training of paramedic personnel, the monitoring of trained staff and the allocation of drugs and equipment. The paramedics are being trained to provide health education, under the supervision of MdM, to the people in the district.
Establishing First Aid in the Saada Region
For the past 4 years, the Saada region in northern Yemen has been ravaged by war and totally closed to international NGOs. The signing of peace accords in July 2007 allowed access to the town of Saada. Since October 2007, MdM has provided first-aid training to health workers and volunteers from the Yemeni Ministry of Health, Yemeni Red Crescent, local NGOs and women's associations, in order to improve access to health care for people in the region. 300 people will be trained to provide care during emergencies and will receive a first-aid kit.
