NEWS UPDATE

Hurricane Mitch Relief

MSF continues to provide aid to the victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America. An estimated 20,000 people have been killed and more than two million left homeless by the flooding that accompanied Hurricane Mitch. We have five emergency relief teams operating in Nicaragua, three in Honduras, three in Guatemala, and one in El Salvador. The teams are traveling to the hardest-hit regions of each country by helicopter, plane, and land cruiser to provide medical care, temporary shelter, food, and clean drinking water, to the victims and homeless.

Assisting the People of Kosovo

Access to medical care has improved since the implementation of the NATO agreement, but physicians in some regions of Kosovo continue to be afraid to reopen their clinics due to police presence. As the displaced people return to their homes and the need for mobile medical clinics decreases, MSF is turning its attention to rehabilitating the existing healthcare system. MSF is working with local doctors and health officials to provide medical and pharmaceutical support to the reconstruction of clinics and hospitals in the districts of Decani, Djakovica, Pec, Prizren, Srbica, and Vucitrn.

Panel Discusion on Mental Health

On Thursday, November 19, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, MSF will present a panel on "The Aftermath of War: a Legacy of Trauma" at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. Speakers will be Kaz de Jong, Carol Etherington, and Winnifred Simon, with opening remarks by Dr. Sigurd Ackerman, President of St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

• Kaz de Jong is a psychologist who works as Mental Health Advisor for MSF in Amsterdam. He launched MSF mental health program in Sarajevo (Bosnia & Hercegovina) in 1994, acting as its coordinator until January 1998 when it was handed over to a local organization.
• Carol Etherington is Assistant Professor of Community Health at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, and a Board Member of MSF-USA. She is a psychiatric nurse who has worked extensively with traumatized populations in community and post-disaster settings in the United States, Cambodia, Poland, and Bosnia.
• Winnifred Simon is a psychologist who has headed MSF's psycho-social care and trauma unit in Amsterdam since 1993. She is responsible for providing health services for aid workers with the organization. She has performed numerous interventions in critical incidents, ongoing stress situations, and after evacuations. She is regularly consulted by other international aid agencies on stress, traumatic stress management, and psycho-social care.

The event will be held in Conference Room B at Roosevelt Hospital, 1000 Tenth Avenue, New York City (between 58th and 59th Streets). All friends of MSF are welcome to attend.

© 1998 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)