Hope In Hell
Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
More fascinating and harrowing accounts of the volunteer professionals who risk their lives to help those in desperate need.
Praise for the second edition:
"Direct and evocative, this well-written book pushes readers to the edge of a world of grueling realities not known by most Americans."
-- Choice
Doctors Without Borders (aka Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) was founded in 1971 by rebellious French doctors. It is arguably the most respected humanitarian organization in the world, delivering emergency aid to victims of armed conflict, epidemics and natural disasters as well as to many others who lack reliable health care.
Dan Bortolotti follows the volunteers at the forefront of this organization and its work, who daily risk their lives to perform surgery, establish or rehabilitate hospitals and clinics, run nutrition and
sanitation programs, and train local medical personnel. These volunteer professionals:
Perform emergency surgery in war-torn regions of Africa, Asia and elsewhere
Treat the homeless in the streets of Europe
Honor cultural customs and understand societal differences that affect health care
Witness and report the genocidal atrocities so often missed by mainstream media
This new and revised third edition includes updates and new inside stories from recent relief operations, and it covers changes within the organization, such as its new emphasis on nutrition. There are also many new and revealing color photographs and insights gained from the author's 2009 trip to Haiti, where he found three different arms of MSF operating in dire conditions.
Hope in Hell is
a widely acclaimed portrait of a renowned Nobel-winning humanitarian organization, revealing how Doctors Without Borders provides immediate and outstanding medical care.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This mostly admiring portrait of Doctors Without Borders/M decins Sans Fronti res (aka MSF), the nonprofit that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, emphasizes the inner workings of the organization and is animated by interviews with mid-level staffers and by site visits to MSF projects in Angola, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In between, journalist Bortolotti traces the history of the world's largest independent medical humanitarian organization, whose genesis was the Biafran horrors of the late '60s. Histrionic founder Bernard Kouchner (whom Bortolotti didn't interview) left the group in 1979 after disputes about tactics; not until the early 1990s did MSF spread to North America. Only about a quarter of field volunteers are, in fact, doctors, and most staff are local hires rather than foreigners. MSF volunteers resist being described as heroic ("It's not noble; it's an attempt," one says) but acknowledge that the crucible of crisis does test character. Some stories (illustrated by stock-looking photos, including two color inserts) are grimly poignant: a middle-aged surgeon tells of relying on his lower-tech training to perform surgery in Sri Lanka and Liberia; a logistician describes how to negotiate with drugged-up child soldiers at a Sierra Leonian checkpoint. While Bortolotti could have been clearer, for example, on the mechanics of MSF's fund-raising apparatus, he notes that even critics of humanitarian aid admire MSF for attempting to intervene under seemingly impossible circumstances.
