By Dilip Bhaskaran, Project Coordinator, Mumbai COVID-19 project We have been collaborating with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) to co-manage dedicated Jumbo COVID-19 Care Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). MCGM is doing a great job and we started this collaboration during the first wave providing patient care. Now, during the second wave, … Read more
By Dr Gautam Harigovind, Medical Activity Manager, COVID-19 project, Mumbai Picture a thousand-bed hospital. There are 28 wards, as well as the emergency, casualty and triage areas. It’s a makeshift hospital in a huge metal tent. Walking into it the first time was a surreal experience; I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like walking … Read more
Recent months have seen a sharp increase in the number of migrants and refugees at Italy’s northern borders. Even in winter, people head westwards across the snow-capped mountains towards France; many tell stories of being repeatedly turned back by the French police. On Italy’s eastern border, people who arrive on foot after travelling the ‘Balkan route’, making their … Read more
An MSF team has provided psychological first aid to 104 survivors of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea since early September. The most recent incident occurred just a few days ago when a small boat from Libya capsized off the coast of Lampedusa in heavy weather. Fifteen people were rescued by a fishing boat but five … Read more
MSF psychologist Sara Tannouri looks back at the blast that devastated her home city of Beirut, Lebanon two months ago and its impact on people’s mental wellbeing, including her own. 4 August 2020 at 6.08 pm. I was just about to leave my house for the weekly session with my personal therapist. I was already late … Read more
Irish MSF Project Coordinator Sarah Leahy describes a day working with MSF at a mobile healthcare clinic in Bijapur, India. ‘The car comes to a sudden halt. A herd of cattle blocks the road on which our mobile clinic team is traveling in a convoy from our base in Bijapur, a small town in Chhattisgarh, … Read more
Nigeria’s ‘middle belt’ states, Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa and Taraba, host the largest numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the country, outside of the northeast region. Most people have been uprooted by the so-called ‘farmer-herdsmen’ conflict. At least 160,000 displaced people are scattered across Benue state, according to 2019 estimates. [1] Here, displaced communities, mostly … Read more
Challenges, fears and stigma of working on the frontline of COVID-19 in India. A blog by Smriti Singh* The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a unique challenge before frontline workers — it is to strike a balance between helping patients cope with inaccurate beliefs about the disease and managing their own fears. Three months ago, when … Read more
In mid-June, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) opened a 100-bed COVID-19 treatment centre in Patna, the capital of Bihar state in northeast India. As coronavirus cases continue to surge across the country (1,6 million cases as of 31 July), we talk to MSF workers and patients living and working on the frontline. They explain … Read more
Currently working in Bihar at a COVID-19 treatment centre, Dr Nimrat Kaur, Regional Deputy Project Coordinator – Asia at Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, has been treating patients under harsh, often unhygienic and overcrowded conditions, where their access to healthcare is already compromised. IANSlife spoke to the doctor to find out … Read more