MSF seeks Irish doctor volunteers

The non-governmental humanitarian organization (NGO), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), is continuing to accept applications from doctors in Ireland to work on healthcare projects, Irish Medical Times reports.

If successful, applicants are then matched with suitable placements depending on current operations requirements for MSF.

An Irish doctor who recently finished a nine-month mission with MSF, treating tuberculosis (TB) and HIV patients in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, infectious diseases specialist Dr Conor Moran has outlined his clinical experience as part of an MSF team travelling across the region to visit the NGO’s TB and HIV clinics.

While TB was largely consigned to history books in Ireland, he said it remained a serious public health issue in South Kivu. Part of this was down to the heavy reliance on the mining industry in South Kivu, which was rich in natural resources including cobalt, coltan and gold.

“I often worked in Misisi, a once-small town that has grown into a huge mining metropolis in the past 10 years. Almost everyone in the town works in the mines, including children. Driving into the town, it was sad to see 14-year-olds with pickaxes and torches walking along the roadside on their way to work.

“The miners work together all day in poorly ventilated mine shafts, inhaling silica and other toxins, and then return home to their often-crowded living conditions. These factors drastically contribute to the spread of TB in the population.

“I also saw numerous cases of multi-drug resistant TB [MDR-TB]. Its contracted through lack of treatment for regular TB and is very difficult to treat once it starts to spread. Its hard for patients to comply with treatment for MDR-TB, as the schedule often requires a lengthy course of injections, with side effects including hearing loss, kidney, and liver failure.

“Oral MDR-TB medication is extremely well-tolerated and effective but can be expensive. MSF is fighting both at national and international levels to make MDR-TB treatment more widely available on a global scale,” Dr Moran added.

The other main disease he worked on with MSF in South Kivu was HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, he said there was still a lot of stigma associated with such a diagnosis in the region, which made it difficult to convince people, particularly men, to come and get tested.

To address this, MSF endeavoured to explain to communities how HIV was an “extremely treatable and liveable condition”.

Towards the end of his time in South Kivu, Covid-19 was in the news every day as it spread across Europe and America.

“Initially it all seemed very far away but that changed quite quickly, and I had to get a last-minute flight back to Ireland before borders closed. Before I left, we developed Covid-19 prevention strategies for our projects.

“This was very important as our patients are mostly immunosuppressed and would be at high risk to Covid-19. On top of TB and HIV, as well as insecurity due to ongoing conflicts, South Kivu faces many other difficulties including measles, cholera, and malnutrition. It is vital to do everything we can to reduce the impact of Covid-19 in the region, while not forgetting other epidemics that are crippling the communities,” he said.

Application details are available here.