Providing health care and essential services across North Kivu
In Goma, MSF is supporting the provincial reference hospital with donations of equipment and drugs. We are also providing access to hygiene and sanitation facilities in Goma, where teams are building latrines for displaced people. MSF has donated equipment, drugs, and 100 mattresses to the Goma provincial hospital in order to improve hospital conditions. MSF is also carrying out active surveillance and monitoring for cholera in health areas in and around Goma, where we were present before the eruption. We are also running health promotion to prevent cholera outbreaks and inform communities about how to access health facilities.
Additionally, on the road between Goma and Rutshuru—which had been closed off by lava but is now open—MSF is supporting existing clinics and has set up an additional emergency ward approximately four miles [six kilometers] from the lava flow. Teams there conducted approximately 170 consultations between May 29-31, and are also providing water to a health center and hospital.
In Sake, MSF installed water bladders to distribute clean water for both displaced people and the host community. Chlorine dispensers have also been installed in key locations throughout the town and close to water supply sources. More latrines and waste disposal sites have been built near sites for displaced people.
We are also providing medical consultations and treatment, referrals to secondary health care, and community outreach and health promotion. MSF teams are currently carrying out 500 medical consultations daily for both displaced people and the host community.
Sake's cholera treatment center has received patients suffering from suspected cholera. From May 23 to June 8, 63 cases of diarrhea were admitted for observation. So far only one case of cholera has been confirmed. Nonetheless, MSF is collaborating with the Ministry of Health on disease surveillance.
In Rutshuru, North Kivu, which hosts 77,000 of the people displaced by this eruption, MSF is supporting the hospital and two health centers in the neighborhood, conducting more than 50 consultations in each structure daily. Teams are providing basic health care and referring more complicated cases to Rutshuru’s hospital, as well as constructing water and sanitation infrastructure. From May 29 to June 8, 1,809 total consultations were carried out. We have also begun construction of water and sanitation infrastructure to respond to the needs of some 3,000 displaced people who are sleeping in stadiums in Rutshuru and Kiwanja.
MSF is also working to limit the impact of the disaster on the patients we assist across 12 projects supported in coordination with the Ministry of Health in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Maniema provinces.
For example, as many people return to Goma, MSF is supporting health centers in the city with free primary health care consultations, medicine, and hygiene items. Additionally, we remain committed to supporting our HIV-positive patients in Goma by ensuring the continuation of antiretroviral therapy in the health centers we supported before this eruption.