Syria: Medicine as a Weapon of Persecution, Doctor Testimony

TRANSCRIPT:"I'm a Syrian doctor. I was treating the wounded in Syria. At first, when the demonstrations started, we sent the injured to public hospitals. But then we were told that injured demonstrators were being tortured or left untreated. Many were even killed. Doctors are working in difficult security conditions and in tough medical conditions, too. Makeshift hospitals tend to be one or two rooms somewhere near a demonstration area. In addition to that, there's all the security pressure and difficulty in reaching certain areas. Doctors who treat the wounded are also being harassed by security forces. Security is what worries doctors most. It's difficult. The risk of being arrested is big. But despite that risk, many doctors are putting their lives in danger in order to fulfill their medical oath. It is difficult to find sterilized medical materials. Due to our limited means and the numbers of wounded, we have to resort to rudimentary medical practices. We are forced to use medical materials and perform medical acts that are far from the safe surgical procedures we would usually carry out. Activists and protestors don't really have any medical resources. They don't have ambulances, for example. The injured are transported by their friends and fellow protesters. When we receive serious casualties, a patient who needs to be hospitalized, we have two options: Either we let him die, or we send him to hospital not knowing what will become of him. Many hospitals are encircled and placed under tight control when security forces are informed that a casualty is due to arrive from a demonstration area."


Testimonies from injured people and doctors from across Syria were collected by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff between January 30 and February 6, 2012. MSF is not authorized to operate inside Syria at present and thus is unable to fully verify the information collected here. However, given the recurring nature, consistency, and severity of the acts described in these testimonies, MSF has decided to make them public. For security reasons, names and locations have been withheld. Read more - http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=5755&cat=press-...

At Any Price? Event at Boston Public Library, Part 1

At Any Price?Boston Public LibraryFebruary 1, 2012

At Any Price? Event at Boston Public Library, Part 2

At Any Price? Event At The Public Library Of Boston-Part 2

MSF At Any Price -Part 1

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At Any Price? MSF Webcast: Negotiating Access to Crisis Zones

Humanitarian negotiations are life-and-death issues for people in need, but they also raise troubling political and ethical dilemmas for the organizations that are engaged in them. In the book Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, published by Columbia University Press, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) takes a critical look at how its teams have negotiated to gain access to people in urgent need of lifesaving medical assistance in the 40 years since MSF was founded, including recent case studies from Somalia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.On January 31, 2012, MSF hosted a live online discussion of these issues featuring several experienced MSF aid workers, who shared their first-hand experiences from past assignments. They described the often complicated process of negotiating with governments, armed groups, public health officials, international actors, community leaders, and local officials; as well as the struggle to define what compromises are acceptable in order to run programs in crisis zones.

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Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Negotiations Revealed

Humanitarian negotiations are life-and-death issues for people in need, but they also raise troubling political and ethical dilemmas for the organizations that are engaged in them. In the book Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, published by Columbia University Press, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) takes a critical look at how its teams have negotiated to gain access to people in urgent need of lifesaving medical assistance in the 40 years since MSF was founded, including recent case studies from Somalia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.
On January 31, 2012, MSF hosted a live online discussion of these issues featuring several experienced MSF aid workers, who shared their first-hand experiences from past assignments. They described the often complicated process of negotiating with governments, armed groups, public health officials, international actors, community leaders, and local officials; as well as the struggle to define what compromises are acceptable in order to run programs in crisis zones.


http://youtu.be/gcs32BwwL7A