The Challenge of Doctors without Borders

Doctors without Borders: Why They are Needed and What You Can Do Outline I. Attention Grabber a. Exposing the Dangers b. The Doctors without Borders group protested the establishment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it saw the TPP would cut off supplies desperately needed for its work c. The U.S. then attacked a Doctors without Borders hospital in Afghanistan killing dozens and destroying the work of the group for 2 years i. 42 people died ii. Including staff, doctors, patients and volunteers d.

This contrast between a nation intent on destroying with bombs and a small group intent on healing with health care and medicine shows that people need to choose sides and support one or the other. II. Establishing the Need a. Because of all the conflicts, wars and diseases raging around the world, there is a need for humanitarian service. b. Doctors without Borders has been satisfying that need since the 1970s c. However, Doctors without Borders cannot do it alone. d.

If they speak out against the tyranny of the West, they are attacked. e. They need your help. III. Satisfying the Need a. The group cannot continue to satisfy the need if it is targeted politically and blown up literally by bombs and bullets b. Ordinary people, therefore, have to do more to get involved. c. The government is accountable to you all. d. If you protest, they hear you. IV. Visualizing the Future a. If you do nothing, this type of madness will continue. b.

It is a choice of deciding which version of humanity you want to live with: i. The version where violence is the only solution, or ii. The version where care, commitment and devotion can help to turn lives around and bring peace. c. The future does not have to be one of war. d. It can be one of peace—but it depends on us to make that happen. V. Actualization a.

To actualize this information, you have to raise your voice and be willing to stand up if you get knocked down. b. Just like Doctors without Borders has done. c. Its hospital was blown up in Kunduz in 2015 d. Since 2017 it is back up and running again. e. The hospital is smaller now and less powerful—but it is still a sign of what people can do when they work together for the good: i. They create things, groups, organizations, structures. ii.

They bring peace and health and life f. You can do the same by joining or supporting Doctors without Borders Speech Good afternoon, my fellow students. Back in 2015 when the U.S. was trying to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passed, one voice rose out among others to condemn what would have been a corporate monopoly on pharmaceuticals: Doctors without Borders.

This Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization founded in 1971 (Suen) to address the health care needs of people primarily stuck in conflict zones called the TPP an “imminent threat to global health” (Bernish).

As the Obama Administration sought to gain support from the trade agreement that would allow Big Pharma to internationally control the prices of drugs (and thereby control the extent to which health care could be provided to indigent populations), the leaders of Doctors without Borders became more and more vocal, conducting interviews, publishing information on their own and even writing directly to the U.S. President himself (Bernish).

As Gordon notes, the group “accused the US government of inserting provisions into the TPP that would interfere with the low-cost delivery of malaria and hiv/aids medicines to developing nations” (Gordon 20). And then on October 3rd, 2015, U.S. forces bombed the Kunduz region in Afghanistan and destroyed the trauma hospital operated by Doctors without Borders killing 42 people, including patients, volunteers and doctors who had dedicated their lives to helping the victims of the international crises ongoing in the Middle East.

It was as though the hospital were directly targeted by U.S. forces because there had been no fighting in the immediate vicinity. The hospital was not a hotbed of terror. It had 92 beds and it “was the only facility treating major trauma injuries in all of northeastern Afghanistan, serving thousands of people. Since opening the hospital in 2011, more than 15,000 surgeries were conducted and more than 68,000 emergency patients were treated” (MSFa).

Yet on October 3rd, patients were “burned in their beds, medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs, and others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building” (MSFa). It could only be explained as blowback for speaking out against the health care cartel that wanted to rule the world through the control of the flow of drugs everywhere.

Doctors without Borders was targeted directly—“starting at 2:08am on Saturday 3 October, a United States AC-130 gunship fired 211 shells on the main hospital building where patients were sleeping in their beds or being operated on in the operating theatre. At least 42 people were killed, including 24 patients, 14 staff and 4 caretakers. Thirty-seven people were injured” (MSFb). The U.S. claimed, first, that it had hit the hospital by accident—then, after this seemed unlikely, they changed their story and claimed the hospital had been supporting the Taliban.

Yet one of the reasons the Doctors without Borders organization has been so successful is that it has always pledged to “treat people according to their medical needs and do not make distinctions based on a patient’s ethnicity, religious beliefs, political affiliation or on which side of a conflict they're from” (MSFb).

It is a neutral party when it comes to conflict, looking on its role as life savers as more important than any conflict or reasons for war: it is there to save lives, not to take them—not matter who is in need. That is why it was honored with the Nobel Peace prize in the 1990s, and that is why it is beloved today by so many who suffer from the international conflicts that arise between superpowers vying for control of resources in foreign lands.

Doctors without Borders is a special kind of organization that the world needs more of—not less of. So when their hospitals are attacked it goes without saying that supporters of the group call such attacks war crimes, and rightly so.

The U.S.’s own investigation into the attack ultimately called it the result of “human error” (Arsalai), but with today’s precision missiles and GPS-guided attacks it is hard to understand how this type of “collateral damage” can be swept under the rug. The group cannot continue to satisfy the need if it is targeted politically and blown up literally by bombs and bullets. Ordinary people, therefore, have to do more to get involved. The government is accountable to you all.

If you protest, they hear you. Doctors without Borders represents the other side of humanity that often gets forgotten in the bloody messes and entanglements that the U.S. and its allies so often seem to be provoking in the Middle East—whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, or Iran. As the bombs continue to fall on Afghanistan, nearly 20 years after 9/11—think about that—the U.S. appears no closer to completing its mission than when it started.

Doctors without Borders, however, continues to serve these war-torn and ravaged communities. The organization has even recently re-opened its doors in Kunduz, though its office is now just a shadow of what it was prior to its attack in 2015. Still, it is there, back to help the people of Afghanistan, just as it is doing in 80 other countries around the world. So on the one hand, there is the U.S.

aiming to “fix things” by bombing into oblivion its enemies—and on the other hand there are the doctors and nurses and volunteers who join Doctors without Borders to serve the needs of people without judgment or condemnation. They come in peace and bring healing. People get to make choices all the time in life—and choosing which side to support in an argument is never easy.

But sometimes it is a lot simpler to make a choice when the surface arguments are stripped away and the true essence of the sides is revealed. So what would you choose? Brutal power and force on the one side, or kindness, charity and devotion on the other side? Doctors without Borders was founded in France in the 1970s to help in wars and disaster areas.

This group has been in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Sudan, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and has ongoing missions throughout Africa, Russia, the Middle East, Asia, and Central and South America. And they are just doing the bare necessities to help keep people alive. Just imagine what kind of world we could be living in were it not run by people who insisted on ruling the world through bombs and missiles, destroying the lives of citizens in numerous cities and states around the planet. Of course, the U.S.

is not the only player in these conflicts, but it is a significant one. Just imagine what would happen if only a fraction of the money spent on military would be spent on organizations like Doctors without Borders to allow care to be delivered wherever it is needed. Even in the U.S.