Ob/Gyn

This special report details MSF’s approach to delivering quality emergency obstetric care to prevent maternal death.

Despite the ostensible cessation of the fighting that wracked Ivory Coast earlier this year, violence against civilians has continued in some rural regions, particularly in the southwest. In mid-September, for instance, up to 16 people were killed and 50 homes were burned in an attack on the town of Zriglo.

Doctors and other hospital staff in Libya are highly dedicated, but there is a lack of inpatient capacity in all areas of care. MSF is helping to fill the gaps in surgery, obstetrics, and neonatal care.

"We are working in a so-called 'safe zone,' which is actually not safe because many parts of the city are in range of the shelling," says MSF's Emergency Coordinator in Misrata. 

Obstetric fistulas are one of the most serious consequences of obstructed labor. An estimated 2 million women in developing countries are living with fistulas, many on the margins of society.

Women who survive complicated deliveries can develop fistulas. Struck by incontinence, they live hidden away from others, resigned to their fate and suffering in silence.

For the communities of Port Sudan, discussions on reproductive health were often taboo. But with community members taking a leading role in health promotion, things are changing.

In the past six months, MSF has cared for hundreds of women facing complicated deliveries at its emergency obstetrics program in Balochistan.

"I developed eclampsia the day before I delivered and I realize that's serious," said Crisla Florestal, 19, who was readmitted a day after giving birth at the MSF hospital Isaïe Jeanty, in Port-au-Prince.

Six months after Haiti’s January 12 earthquake, MSF describes the organization’s largest ever emergency response.

Each month, between 200 and 300 new patients come to the MSF clinic in Lae. They have all been raped, beaten or attacked with knives.

Since I started with MSF, women’s reproductive health programs have grown in priority. This makes sense in light of high maternal mortality rates in the contexts where MSF works. With much more information and evidence available, I think we are doing a better job of providing “best practices” within our projects.

An interview with Olivia Gayraud, a French emergency nurse, who helped open the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) 56-bed emergency medical and surgical program at St. Joseph's Hospital in Port-au-Prince in October 2004. In March 2007, she became head of mission at the project, which now inlcudes a program to treat victims of sexual violence with medical and mental health care.

On April 17, 2007 MSF launched an emergency medical response in Afgooye, Lower Shabelle Region, about 30 kilometers west of Mogadishu. Due to insecurity in the area, MSF decided to dispatch a team of senior MSF Somali staff from Nairobi and the Dinsor Health Center to evaluate the needs of thousands of displaced people who poured into the town following major fighting in Mogadishu.

The women of Haiti suffer from the highest maternal mortality rate in the Western hemisphere. Approximately 523 women die for every 100,000 who give birth. (In United States, 12 women die during the same number of births). To help prevent these deaths, MSF has started providing free, emergency care to women with high-risk pregnancies in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Janeta is a gynecologist working in Ingushetia. She started with MSF in 2000 and works alongside a pediatrician and two nurses in two different kompaktniki (spontaneous settlements), which she visits twice each week.