The need for speed
“MSF gives you a sense of the concepts of emergency and speed,” says Tom Roth, a former MSF program manager who is now working with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
As the Executive Lead of contact tracing, Tom is responsible for a team that aims to ensure that close contacts of positive cases are tested and isolated as quickly as possible.
“Knowing that speed should sometimes be the driver, and that you need to be very agile and adjust, is crucial.”
Many MSF-ers highlighted that the key thing they had learnt from MSF was an appreciation of the need for urgent action in crisis situations.
Dr Chatu Yapa has completed six assignments with MSF, including in South Sudan, Liberia and Iraq, and worked as a senior medical advisor in the DHHS case contact and outbreak management team at the height of Melbourne’s outbreak.
“We are used to working in emergencies and we have some idea of what the outbreak response is and how to put it together in a chaotic and ever-changing environment, so that’s certainly translatable,” she says.