Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders is an inter­na­tional med­ical human­i­tar­ian orga­ni­za­tion cre­ated by doc­tors and jour­nal­ists to offer qual­ity med­ical care to those around the world too poor to afford it.

Doc­tors With­out Borders/Médecins Sans Fron­tières (MSF) is an inter­na­tional med­ical human­i­tar­ian orga­ni­za­tion cre­ated by doc­tors and jour­nal­ists in France in 1971.

Today, MSF pro­vides aid in nearly 60 coun­tries to peo­ple whose sur­vival is threat­ened by vio­lence, neg­li­gence, or cat­a­stro­phe, pri­mar­ily due to armed con­flict, epi­demics, mal­nu­tri­tion, exclu­sion from health care, or nat­ural dis­as­ters. MSF pro­vides inde­pen­dent, impar­tial assis­tance to those most in need. MSF reserves the right to speak out to bring atten­tion to neglected crises, to chal­lenge inad­e­qua­cies or abuse of the aid sys­tem, and to advo­cate for improved med­ical treat­ments and protocols.

In 1999, MSF received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Human­i­tar­ian Action

MSF’s work is based on the human­i­tar­ian prin­ci­ples of med­ical ethics and impar­tial­ity. The orga­ni­za­tion is com­mit­ted to bring­ing qual­ity med­ical care to peo­ple caught in cri­sis regard­less of race, reli­gion, or polit­i­cal affiliation.

MSF oper­ates inde­pen­dently of any polit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, or reli­gious agen­das. Med­ical teams con­duct eval­u­a­tions on the ground to deter­mine a population’s med­ical needs before open­ing pro­grams. The key to MSF’s abil­ity to act inde­pen­dently in response to a cri­sis is its inde­pen­dent fund­ing. Eighty-nine per­cent of MSF’s over­all fund­ing (and 100 per­cent of MSF-USA’s fund­ing) comes from pri­vate sources, not gov­ern­ments. In 2006, MSF had more than three mil­lion indi­vid­ual donors and pri­vate fun­ders worldwide.

MSF is neu­tral. The orga­ni­za­tion does not take sides in armed con­flicts, pro­vides care on the basis of need alone, and pushes for increased inde­pen­dent access to vic­tims of con­flict as required under inter­na­tional human­i­tar­ian law.

Who is MSF?

On any one day, more than 27,000 com­mit­ted indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent­ing dozens of nation­al­i­ties can be found pro­vid­ing assis­tance to peo­ple caught in crises around the world. They are doc­tors, nurses, logis­tics experts, admin­is­tra­tors, epi­demi­ol­o­gists, lab­o­ra­tory tech­ni­cians, men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als, and oth­ers who work together in accor­dance with MSF’s guid­ing prin­ci­ples of human­i­tar­ian action and med­ical ethics.

MSF field staff are sup­ported by their col­leagues in 19 offices around the world, includ­ing one in New York. The vast major­ity of MSF’s aid work­ers are from the com­mu­ni­ties where the crises are occur­ring, with ten per­cent of teams made up of inter­na­tional staff, includ­ing more than 200 aid work­ers from the US in 2007.

For infor­ma­tion on how to apply to join MSF in the field click here.

Qual­ity Med­ical Care

MSF rejects the idea that poor coun­tries deserve third-rate med­ical care and strives to pro­vide high-quality care to patients and to improve the organization’s prac­tices. Through the Cam­paign for Access to Essen­tial Med­i­cines and, in recent years, in part­ner­ship with the Drugs for Neglected Dis­eases ini­tia­tive, this work has helped lower the price of HIV/AIDS treat­ment and has stim­u­lated research and devel­op­ment for med­i­cines to treat malaria and neglected dis­eases like sleep­ing sick­ness and kala azar.

For more infor­ma­tion about Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders visit their web­site:
www.doctorswithoutborders.org

News from MSF

• [Press Release] Syria: Med­i­cine as a Weapon of Persecution
• [Spe­cial Report] Spe­cial Report: In Syria, Med­i­cine as a Weapon of Persecution
• Lebanon: Heal­ing Those Deeply Affected
• [Voice from the Field] Soma­lia: “Today the Child is Com­pletely Dif­fer­ent Than [the] Day He Was Admitted”
• [Op-Eds & Arti­cles] What Unit­ing to Com­bat Trop­i­cal Dis­eases Will Really Require

Sources:
doctorswithoutborders.org

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