Stories & News

While the COVID-19 pandemic dominated headlines in 2020, there was no end to other diseases, emergencies and crises affecting people globally.  
  
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) continued to work alongside health authorities and communities in more than 70 countries. 
  
From assisting Syrians displaced by conflict to continuing essential sexual and reproductive health services for women and girls, these are ten of our biggest responses outside of COVID-19 in 2020. 

In 2020, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) provided medical care for people in more than 70 countries. From responding to disease epidemics to providing healthcare in conflict zones, here are some of the most memorable stories from our patients over the last year. 

In part two of her blog series from Aweil, South Sudan, Dr Madeleine Finney-Brown meets the mother of a boy with Down syndrome, torn between the hospital and home.

Dr Madeleine Finney-Brown is an advanced paediatric trainee from Melbourne working in the MSF-run paediatrics department of Aweil Civil Hospital, Aweil, South Sudan. In the first of a three-part blog, Madeleine describes the terrible effects of cerebral malaria in young children during the malaria ‘peak’. 

Nurses and midwives provide a vast range of healthcare from prevention to cure, encompassing areas such as health promotion, emergency care, childbirth, neonatal care, and surgical and medical care. With 80 per cent of primary healthcare around the world provided by nurses and midwives, the impact these medical professionals have is far-reaching.   

Here’s a few things you may not know about these essential healthcare workers and the care they provide worldwide. 

Their talents are broad, their skillsets immense, their workplaces diverse. From antenatal care to zoonotic diseases, here’s the A-to-Z on what keeps MSF’s nurses and midwives occupied around the world, and how we support them in low-resource settings. 

Nurses and midwives are the backbone of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) multidisciplinary teams. They also fulfill diverse and critical roles in health promotion, patient education and community care. 

Throughout 2020, MSF is celebrating the efforts of nurses and midwives and highlighting their daily contributions in and alongside MSF projects.

Severe flooding is affecting an estimated 1.3 million people across South Sudan and Ethiopia, inundating homes and leaving many without adequate food, water or shelter. Heavy summer rains have seen many areas flooded since July, with river levels continuing to rise.

Médecins Sans Frontières field workers are familiar with responding to emergencies and navigating quickly changing circumstances. Many have now drawn on that experience as they respond to the COVID-19 outbreak within Australia, in roles ranging from direct patient care, to providing health workers with psychological support, to managing Australia’s overall medical response. 

Médecins Sans Frontières is an international medical humanitarian organisation. We provide free medical care to millions of people in more than 70 countries around the world. This humanitarian assistance is made possible by the work of our field workers including many from Australia and New Zealand. Each year, MSF Australia sends around 200 Australians and New Zealanders on overseas field assignments to provide medical-humanitarian aid.