MSF-USA: Libya: MSF Completes First Evaluation of Medical Facilities in Benghazi

February 26, 2011
Libya: MSF Completes First Evaluation of Medical Facilities in Benghazi

The first Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team reached Benghazi on Friday evening, February 25. The team visited three medical facilities: Al Jalaa Hospital, Al Hawari Hospital, and Benghazi Medical Centre (BMC). Each of them is well equipped and have managed to deal with the numbers of wounded people and medical needs. However, they are facing some shortages of medical material and drugs—dressings for wounds, sutures, anesthesia drugs, and external fixators.

MSF will provide the needed materials to the BMC. They will also train the local teams in the management of mass casualties so they will be prepared in case of new clashes.

An orthopedic surgeon, an anesthesiologist, and a operation theatre nurse will join the assessment team on Monday, February 28, to determine the surgical needs of wounded patients in Al Jalaa Hospital. The evaluation of MSF's medical doctors is that many patients hospitalized in this 400-bed trauma center will require second-line surgery.

Today, the MSF team is assessing two additional health facilities in Benghazi and is making contacts in order to continue medical assessments further west in the country.

The MSF team is now made up of eight people: two coordinators, three medical doctors, two logisticians, and an administrator. Two trucks loaded with drugs and medical supplies, including surgical materials, have arrived in Benghazi. Twelve additional tons of materials are ready to be sent to Libya through Egypt or Malta.