Bruce Lampard President, MSF Canada	Marilyn McHarg Executive Director, MSF Canada

2010 began with one of the most devastating earthquakes worldwide in the last 100 years. In an instant, Haitians were thrown into chaos. From one minute to the next, people were in desperate need and, sadly, the capacity to respond to their suffering was in many respects woefully inadequate. More than 200,000 people were killed and another 300,000 were injured.

Immediately following the earthquake, MSF team members negotiated their way around the city, scrambling to establish the whereabouts of our staff. As far as our hospitals were concerned, one had completely collapsed and the others were damaged. Within a few hours, we had started setting up tents, and with the staff and supplies that were available, began providing first aid to those injured by the earthquake.

Historic intervention met with record support by Canadians

By the end of the year, more than 8,000 people had worked for MSF across more than 40 sites in Haiti. Close to 360,000 patients received medical consultations, 177,000 patients received mental healthcare, 16,000 patients had surgery, and more than 15,000 women delivered babies in MSF-supported facilities. It was the largest intervention in MSF’s 40-year history, and it was met with the greatest generosity by Canadians MSF has ever seen. All funds collected for the Haiti emergency were spent in 2010. While our work had an important impact, we have also seen how the international aid community as a whole has failed Haiti. Despite the thousands of aid groups working in the country, for example, hundreds of thousands of Haitians continue to live in temporary structures designed to provide shelter for a matter of days, not weeks, and certainly not months. As a member of the aid community, MSF must share the responsibility for that failure.

As the Haiti team stabilized its response around mid-2010, a number of other emergencies occurred around the world. In Pakistan, torrential rains caused flooding that washed away crops, submerged and destroyed villages and left an estimated 1,700 people dead. Twenty million people across the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh lost their homes and livelihoods in the disaster. The floods also affected people in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and in Kashmir.  MSF responded by carrying out extensive medical consultations in hospitals, mobile clinics and diarrhea treatment centres. We treated more than 8,800 malnourished children and provided maternal healthcare, meanwhile distributing 2.1 million litres of clean water per day was well as tens of thousands relief kits and tents.

Leadership in emergency response

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, an MSF team discovered that children were dying in a village at an alarming rate. Through an investigation, we discovered we were dealing with lead poisoning related to gold extraction, and with that we launched MSF's first-ever lead poisoning response. Using complex medical protocols, we have so far been able to treat 1,000 children suffering from the effects of lead poisoning. MSF has since been recognized for its leadership in environmental emergencies with the “Green Star Award, which we accepted in May 2011.

Also in the summer of 2010, a fuel tanker exploded in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), resulting in the deaths 269 people and leaving many more severely burned. MSF’s surgical team worked closely with a surgical team from Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre to provide burn care to survivors of the explosion. Although neither team voiced complaints about the other, MSF was later accused of anti-Semitism by a journalist who was in DRC reporting on the disaster at the time. MSF thoroughly investigated the claims and established they were baseless. The leader of the Israeli team furthermore rejected the journalist’s story and reassured MSF that the groups had enjoyed a positive working relationship in DRC. Despite this, a viral email campaign against MSF on the subject continues, much to the detriment of the organization. The pressure in such emergency situations is high enough on its own; however, when unfounded criticism continues to be perpetuated, it is not only unjust for the staff and patients directly involved, but it is a frustration for the field workers around the world who strive every day to save as many lives as possible.

By October of last year, disaster had struck Haiti once again. For the first time on record, cholera was reported in the country. Because few knew how to recognize its symptoms, the disease had already spread significantly by the time our teams identified it. MSF teams returned to full emergency mode and adapted a number of health services throughout the country into cholera treatment centres. Like the earthquake response that started the year, MSF’s cholera response was the largest in the organization’s history: a total of 130,000 cholera patients were treated, 43 per cent of the total cases in the country. In collaboration with the Haitian authorities, MSF staff and doctors from Cuba who came to help were able to treat the vast majority of cholera cases.

MSF continued its cholera treatment in Haiti until the end of the year, along with responding to a cyclone in Myanmar and a kala azar outbreak in Southern Sudan.

Such emergencies unfolded against the backdrop of MSF’s planned programs, where hosts of teams working in hospitals, health centres, mobile health units, emergency obstetric care facilities, vaccination centres and nutrition units provided care for the many thousands of patients struggling to survive violence, war and disaster. All of these efforts, in combination with the emergency response, are made possible by the support of you, our donors, and for that we would like to thank you.

Sincerely,

Bruce Lampard

President, MSF Canada

Marilyn McHarg

Executive Director, MSF Canada

Annual Report 2010

Download the 2010 financial statement