Emergency department care for trauma patients in settings of active conflict versus urban violence: all of the same calibre?

Background: Trauma is a leading cause of death and represents a major problem in developing countries where access to good quality emergency care is limited. Médecins Sans Frontières delivered a standard package of care in two trauma emergency departments (EDs) in different violence settings: Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Tabarre, Haiti. This study aims to assess whether this standard package resulted in similar performance in these very different contexts.

Saving life and limb: limb salvage using external fixation, a multi-centre review of orthopaedic surgical activities in Médecins Sans Frontières.

Purpose: While the orthopaedic management of open fractures has been well-documented in developed settings, limited evidence exists on the surgical outcomes of open fractures in terms of limb salvage in low- and middle-income countries. We therefore reviewed the Médecins Sans Frontières-Operational Centre Brussels (MSF-OCB) orthopaedic surgical activities in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and in three non-emergency projects to assess the limb salvage rates in humanitarian contexts in relation to surgical staff skills.

Methods: This was a descriptive retrospective cohort study conducted in the MSF-OCB surgical programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Afghanistan, and Haiti.