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Cholera intervention in South Kivu

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How we work

See what triggers an intervention and how supply and logistics allow our teams to respond quickly.

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What we do

Médecins Sans Frontières brings medical humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics or healthcare exclusion.

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Medical Activities

MSF Measles Vaccination in DRC

Learn about how, why, and where MSF teams respond to different diseases around the world, and the challenges we face in providing treatment.

Crisis Settings

Aden besieged

Learn about the different contexts and situations in which MSF teams respond to provide care, including war and natural disaster settings, and how and why we adapt our activities to each.

COVID-19 Project in Mons, Belgium

Learn about our response and our work in depth on specific themes and events.

Where we work

In more than 70 countries, Médecins Sans Frontières provides medical humanitarian assistance to save lives and ease the suffering of people in crisis situations.

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Africa

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Middle East & North Africa

Middle East & North Africa

Europe & Central Asia

Europe & Central Asia

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MSF Websites

A Global Network

Our offices around the world

Our offices around the world

Other Sites

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MSF Association

Our staff “own” and manage MSF, making sure that we stay true to our mission and principles, through the MSF Associations.

Access Campaign

We set up the MSF Access Campaign in 1999 to push for access to, and the development of, life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, diagnostic tests and vaccines for people in our programmes and beyond.

Staff blogs

Read stories from our staff as they carry out their work around the world.

Patient blogs

Hear directly from the inspirational people we help as they talk about their experiences dealing with often neglected, life-threatening diseases.

CRASH

Based in Paris, CRASH conducts and directs studies and analysis of MSF actions. They participate in internal training sessions and assessment missions in the field.

UREPH

Based in Geneva, UREPH (or Research Unit) aims to improve the way MSF projects are implemented in the field and to participate in critical thinking on humanitarian and medical action.

ARHP

Based in Barcelona, ARHP documents and reflects on the operational challenges and dilemmas faced by the MSF field teams.

MSF Analysis

Based in Brussels, MSF Analysis intends to stimulate reflection and debate on humanitarian topics organised around the themes of migration, refugees, aid access, health policy and the environment in which aid operates.

MSF Supply

This logistical and supply centre in Brussels provides storage of and delivers medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.

MSF Logistique

This supply and logistics centre in Bordeaux, France, provides warehousing and delivery of medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.

Amsterdam Procurement Unit

This logistical centre in Amsterdam purchases, tests, and stores equipment including vehicles, communications material, power supplies, water-processing facilities and nutritional supplements.

Southern Africa Medical Unit

SAMU provides strategic, clinical and implementation support to various MSF projects with medical activities related to HIV and TB. This medical unit is based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Kenya Supply Unit

Regional logistic centre for the whole East Africa region

Brazilian Medical Unit

BRAMU specialises in neglected tropical diseases, such as dengue and Chagas, and other infectious diseases. This medical unit is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

MSF Medical Guidelines

Our medical guidelines are based on scientific data collected from MSF’s experiences, the World Health Organization (WHO), other renowned international medical institutions, and medical and scientific journals.

MSF Field Research

Find important research based on our field experience on our dedicated Field Research website.

Manson Unit

The Manson Unit is a London, UK-based team of medical specialists who provide medical and technical support, and conduct research for MSF.

Epicentre

Providing epidemiological expertise to underpin our operations, conducting research and training to support our goal of providing medical aid in areas where people are affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or excluded from health care.

Evaluation Units

Evaluation Units have been established in Vienna, Stockholm, and Paris, assessing the potential and limitations of medical humanitarian action, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of our medical humanitarian work.

LGBTQI+ Inclusion in Health Settings

MSF works with LGBTQI+ populations in many settings over the last 25-30 years. LGBTQI+ people face healthcare disparities with limited access to care and higher disease rates than the general population.

LUXOR

The Luxembourg Operational Research (LuxOR) unit coordinates field research projects and operational research training, and provides support for documentation activities and routine data collection.

Intersectional Benchmarking Unit

The Intersectional Benchmarking Unit collects and analyses data about local labour markets in all locations where MSF employs people.

MSF Academy for Healthcare

To upskill and provide training to locally-hired MSF staff in several countries, MSF has created the MSF Academy for Healthcare.

Humanitarian Law

This Guide explains the terms, concepts, and rules of humanitarian law in accessible and reader-friendly alphabetical entries.

MSF Paediatric Days

The MSF Paediatric Days is an event for paediatric field staff, policy makers and academia to exchange ideas, align efforts, inspire and share frontline research to advance urgent paediatric issues of direct concern for the humanitarian field.

MSF Foundation

The MSF Foundation aims to create a fertile arena for logistics and medical knowledge-sharing to meet the needs of MSF and the humanitarian sector as a whole.

DNDi

A collaborative, patients’ needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development organisation that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases, founded in 2003 by seven organisations from around the world.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — Rania Samour is a counsellor that works for Médecins sans Frontières in Gaza, Palestine. She is part of a team that offers psychosocial support to our patients and their families as they undergo treatment. “Most of our patients here have trauma,” she says, “so I am trying to help them to avoid that trauma becoming a long-term problem.” Here she discusses the day’s appointments with her colleague.

A day with an MSF counsellor in Gaza

War in Gaza:: find out how we're responding

War in Gaza: find out how we're responding

Photo Story7 November 2019

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) first started working in Gaza in 1989 and has been present continuously since 2000.

We run five clinics and two inpatient departments there, and our three surgical teams offer care to people suffering from trauma and burns. The vast majority of our trauma patients are people who were shot by the Israeli army during protests.

MSF has treated 4,600 of the more than 7,600 people shot since 30 March 2018. As well as looking after their physical needs, we offer patients psychosocial support in our clinics and hospitals to deal with any mental health issues they may have. We also support them and their families to help ensure treatment is successfully completed.

These photos follow Rania Samour, one of our counsellors, at work in an outpatient clinic on a day in October 2019.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — Rania Samour is a counsellor who works for MSF in Gaza, Palestine. She is part of a team that offers psychosocial support to our patients and their families as they undergo treatment. “Most of our patients here have trauma,” she says. “So I am trying to help them to avoid that trauma becoming a long-term problem.” Here, she discusses the day’s appointments with her colleague.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — Her first patient of the day is Ahmed, 21. He is one of the more than 7,600 people who have been shot by the Israeli army during protests in Gaza since 30 March 2018. He was shot in June 2018 but is still in the process of recovery. “I come here to lighten my burden,” he says of his sessions with Rania. “I used to do a lot of sports, so it’s boring to just sit and do nothing.”

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — One of the techniques Rania is teaching Ahmed is breathing exercises. They help calm him down and keep him focused, especially when he wants a cigarette. Smoking severely limits the ability of his body to regrow bone. Rania observes that mental health issues are very prominent among the injured people MSF is treating. “I would say that almost everyone who has been shot has either depression or anxiety,” she says.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — MSF is also treating people who have been burnt, like five-year-old Mariam, who was electrocuted in her home when she touched a generator. Many people in Gaza have generators because there is not enough fuel available to run the sole power plant in the enclave, which has been blockaded by Israel for 12 years. Mariam's mum and dad came with her for a first session with Rania so they could discuss their worries about some aspects of her behaviour after she was injured.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — Rania plays with Mariam to put her at ease. She is then able to discuss her issues with her parents and offer advice. The first session with patients and their families is very important, Rania says. “They talk about their lives, and I give them keys, prompts to direct me to what the problem might be.” While some people only need a couple of sessions, others come back for extended periods of counselling with Rania.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — Rania also assists medical staff in explaining treatment to patients and their families. Here, she shows five-year-old Mohammed and his father how to put on a pressure garment that will help to prevent the little boy's injuries from scarring. “We use psychoeducational techniques to make sure that the family is taking part in the care,” she says.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — Rania offers advice to Um Bilal, 54, who was injured during the protests and now has an infection in her fractured arm bone. “We protested because we wanted to pressure the Israelis to lift the siege that we are living under,” she explains. Now she’s struggling to deal with the fallout of the injury: “I can’t do anything in the house, just take painkillers,” she says.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — “I am scared for the future,” Um Bilal says. “Scared that my arm will not return to how it was. I cannot dress myself – my husband helps but it is hard for him also. I just want to be able to dress myself, wash myself.” The pain that people who have been shot experience, combined with the long and difficult period of uncertainty that their recovery is made up of, create many mental health issues.

A Day in the Life of an MSF Counsellor in Gaza — At the end of the day, Rania writes up her notes about the sessions with her patients. She says that, over the ten years she has been working in Gaza, she has noticed a difference in people’s willingness to seek and accept care for their mental health issues. “Ten years ago, people refused mental health treatment,” she said. “Now they are accepting it because they can see that people are getting better. They have stopped saying that people with mental health issues are ‘crazy’. The people who come to us to talk are less likely to develop issues than those who don’t.”

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