Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders

Documentary

First Run Features

R1 DVD

Medecins sans Frontieres is a charity group that supplies doctors, hospitals and medical facilities to countries in desperate need because of civil war or other disaster.

Doctors volunteer their time, sometimes for years, simply because they feel the need to use their skills to relieve the medical problems. This takes more skill than might be expected. One Australian doctor compares it to medicine in his father’s day (he was a doctor too). Shortages of the drugs they are used to, primitive surgical facilities, major trauma problems like gunshot wounds – a doctor will see all of these in a short time. Other problems include the language difficulties, stress and burnout, the fear of local people who have never seen a doctor before, and personality clashes between tired staff. And there is always, in the background, the risk of typhoid or Lassa Fever or worse. This work should properly be the work of the U.N but as one doctor points out they are good at devising plans that may take a few years to put into place. The people need doctors NOW. With no political or religious ties MSF can move quickly into a troubled area and start work.

The story focuses on four doctors and their experiences in Liberia and the Congo. What they can do with their limited facilities is brilliant. We see a doctor carefully squeezing a herniated intestine the size of a soccer ball back into a woman’s abdomen. An ulcerated foot is now so badly infected that an amputation with minimal tools is the only answer. A man has a hole drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure caused by internal bleeding, and miraculously regains his lucidity and memory as the pressure in his skull drops. We see the failures, too. A little boy is badly bloated, possibly due to kidney, liver or renal failure. They do not have the drugs to treat him or a lab to do tests, so he can only be returned to his mother to see if he lives or dies.

“There are a lot of people you couldn’t help, and you just have to get used to that.” - Dr Chris Brasher

There are rare moments of humour, too. The bloated little boy starts farting violently and overnight much of the swelling goes down. Another little boy tells his doctor he should give up smoking (he did give it up).

In countries with minimal health and hygiene facilities to start with, a war is a medical load that is not needed. Nevertheless in countries like the Congo 250,000 people have already died in the violence. This could be dramatically reduced by adequate medical care but MSF’s funding simply doesn’t allow them to be everywhere they are needed.

When do you close a hospital? Funding means that a unit must be closed within a few months of the end of the emergency even though the doctors know full well that their services are still desperately needed. No matter how much still needs to be done, there will be another trouble spot where they are now needed even more.

The constant frustration seems to take it toll on the doctors. Few will return for a second tour with MSF. As the doctors relate their experiences and discuss their feelings we can see why.

The documentary shows in detail the lives of these hard-working men and women. It is far more than the brief mention given to MSF in the TV news. I have nothing but respect for them.

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