Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) or doctors without borders is a humanitarian organization created by the joint efforts of doctors and journalists in 1971. The organization is head quartered in France. It is an international organization made up of 19 organizations from countries including Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The MSF has a very large network and is equipped with adequate human, financial and logistic resources. It has almost 27000 professionals from various countries of the world. These professionals include doctors, nurses, technicians, mental health professionals, administrators, and epidemiologists, etc. All these people work day and night to provide assistance to the affected people of the world.
MSF has 19 offices in the world. Most of its workers are from the affected areas. Only 10% of its staff belongs to unaffected areas of the world. Each associative organization is answerable to a board of directors elected by the members.
Since its inception, MSF has provided and is providing support and assistance in over 60 countries. It supports and extends help to people affected with violence, negligence, calamities, epidemics, conflicts or natural disasters. MSF also takes steps in improving medical treatments and procedures.
The best thing about MSF is it operates independently. Its operations and agendas don’t have any political, religious or military influence. The major reason of its independent working is its independent funding. It is not dependent on any political or religious party. It takes funds from individual donors, non-government and private sources.
Before initiating any program, the medical teams perform detailed analysis of the medical needs of a population, identify the loop holes and then formulate and implement the program. It aims to provide assistance to people and communities which are in dire need of medical facilities but could not access due to lack of resources.
While performing their duties, the medical teams of MSF often witness events of violence and neglect. MSF can speak out to get international attention to the neglected topics. It can identify the inadequacies of system and spread awareness about certain social issues.
The MSF adapts the equal rights policy. It does not matter whether it is serving in some developed country or third world poor country. The quality of its services remains high for everybody. It extends high quality care and services to all patients.
One of the major contributions of MSF is helped in lowering the price of HIV treatment. It accomplished this in partnership with Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative through the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. This accomplishment has also accelerated the R & D process for treatment of malaria and other diseases.
In 1990, MSF-UNO was created to help MSF in fund raising, creating awareness, recruiting staff and communication with UN regarding humanitarian concerns. Besides these main functions, MSF-USA also organizes meetings with UN and ensures timely events and activities. In brief, MSF is really a valuable organization which is contributing largely in welfare of humanity.