doctors without borders
With continual uncertainty and insecurity, maintaining health care services in Haiti has become as much as a challenge as it is needed. “I don’t know what our patients would do if MSF couldn’t provide them with free health care anymore,” Joachim says. "The situation in Haiti is catastrophic. I only hope it could change."
An airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, has killed at least fourteen patients and staff at a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders. Among the dead is one of the last pediatricians in the city.
Neither the Syrian air force nor Russian military are currently taking responsibility for the attack. The United States and Russia agreed to support a truce between warring parties earlier this year, but those talks have largely broken down in recent months, according to The Washington Post.
Image via Bruce Rolff / Shutterstock
When I heard that a U.S. military plane blew up a hospital in Afghanistan on Oct. 3, I assumed that it was a mistake, albeit a deeply tragic one. That’s what NATO claimed.
“The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility,” their statement said.
In the heat of the battle, bombs fell where they weren’t supposed to fall.
But the “collateral damage,” 22 dead and 37 injured civilians, may not have been hit on accident.
What does our response to Ebola say about our attitude towards the poor in spirit? Photo via R. Gino Santa Maria/shutterstock
“Administration officials have repeatedly assured Americans that they were prepared for Ebola. Less than two weeks ago here at the White House, they insisted they knew how to stop this virus in its tracks. But so far, the virus appears to be outrunning the government. “
So began Scott Horsley’s report from the White House, one of three separate stories NPR’s news showAll Things Considered devoted to Ebola on Wednesday, October 16. According to yet another report, a recent Harvard School of Public Health survey finds that 40 percent of Americans feel “at risk” of contracting the disease.
We have Ebola on the brain.
Several of my friends expressed alarm when the first Ebola patient flew to the United States for treatment. Now we find that not one but two Dallas nurses have contracted Ebola, likely because their hospital did not adopt proper Ebola protocols. Americans know that their medical system is far better equipped to prevent an Ebola outbreak than are those in West Africa. We know our system is better prepared to offer effective treatment. But the appearance of multiple cases, one involving a nurse who took a commercial flight while possibly contagious, has people concerned. When a key public health expert says, “It’s a learning process, and . . . our confidence in the hospitals was ill-founded,” the rest of us might get a little nervous.