YEMEN
PROVIDING CARE
AMIDST CONFLICT AND COVID-19
As MSF paediatric nurses in Yemen, we seldom feel a sense of excitement in the air. The daily reality in this war-torn country is that civilians, our teams and medical facilities are faced with indiscriminate attacks.
For the Yemeni people, brutal attacks, violent clashes, airstrikes and blockades have made accessing healthcare almost impossible.
20 million of the country’s 28 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. Recent outbreaks of diseases like cholera and diphtheria, as well as the arrival of COVID-19, have exacerbated the already dire humanitarian situation.
20 million people in need of assistance
Warring parties have destroyed much of the country’s public infrastructure, including health facilities.
Most people can no longer afford the transport costs to get to them. People are unable to seek timely care, causing easily curable health conditions to become deadly.
Implementing new
treatment
Humidified high-flow oxygen therapy (also known simply as high flow)
Provides more respiratory support than the traditional oxygen therapy you receive through a mask or through nasal cannulas. Organising this new treatment was never going to be an easy task.
Our most extensive activities worldwide
The Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) activities in Yemen are our most extensive worldwide.
MSF staff are working in 12 hospitals and health centres across the country and providing support to more than 20 hospitals or health facilities, across 11 governorates.
“I have been working in intensive care units for more than 14 years, and what’s new to me is the dramatic way in which people are dying here. They enter the emergency room walking, but they are already deeply deprived of oxygen without being aware of it, and they die in a surprisingly short amount of time. That is shocking.”
- Dr. Nizar Jahlan, Medical Activity Manager
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