Colin Watson is a nurse from Alice Springs. He writes to us from Mathar in Ethiopia, where he has been working since March 2010. This is Colin's third field placement with Médecins Sans Frontières, having previously worked with...
“My daughter does not stop vomiting; she also has diarrhoea, and a very high fever. I took her to the hospital but she didn’t get better, so the doctor told me to bring her here,” said Nabila, holding on to her frail one year...
Food insecurity is particularly severe in areas of the Sahel region this year; Médecins Sans Frontières is conducting emergency nutrition interventions.
MSF mobile nutritional program
Ethiopia / 09.12.08
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When the MSF team arrive, a large crowd is already waiting for them.
Patients are divided into those who are already on the nutritional program, and those waiting to have their children newly assessed.
The line of people waiting to have their children assessed.
Each child's middle upper arm circumference is measured with a MUAC.
If the MUAC is in the red, yellow or orange section, the child is already suffering from or at high risk of malnutrition.
Children with a green MUAC measurement (indicating a healthy range) have their fingers dipped in ink to identify them as not requiring ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).
Of those identified to be suffering from malnutrition, their heights are measured...
... then weight recorded, and placed into the nutritional program.
Patients awaiting their turn seeking shade from the hot Ethiopian sun.
Treatment consists of a medical consultation, and allocation of RUTF.
Each patient is checked thoroughly. Their progress is recorded week to week.
If necessary, mothers are given additional medication to supplement their child's RUTF.
Consultations take place in a classroom.
After their consultation, patients are given RUTF to last for one week, until the OTP team returns.
After receiving their allocation of RUTF, patients return home. Some have walked long distances in order to reach the outreach program.
Patients not showing improvements over a period of time; or those who arrive with pre-existing complications or serious medical conditions, are taken back to Sembete for admission to the in-patient program in the stabilisation centre.
At the end of the day, the Land Cruisers are packed and head for home.
In Ethiopia, MSF's mobile nutrition program screens and treats children for malnutrition in remote parts of the country. This slideshow follows an MSF team on an outreach mission and shows the typical tasks involved with running a mobile nutritional program.
