MSF has been working at Umaru Shehu hospital in Borno State capital Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria since 28 September. The hospital, which treats patients referred from smaller health facilities, also provides care to people wounded during attacks.
An MSF doctor and nurse provide support and relief to Ministry of Health teams working night and day in the 11-bed emergency room. Between 28 September and 3 October, 134 patients were admitted to the department for medical and surgical emergency care.
On 1 October, MSF staff and the hospital’s teams treated 20 patients (who included six children and 11 women) wounded during yet another wave of Boko Haram suicide bomb attacks in Maiduguri. Three were in critical condition and, regrettably, one has died. The other patients are either still in hospital in a stable condition or have been discharged.
Resuscitation kits and essential medicines donated by MSF are already in use and the operating theatre has been refitted and equipped with supplies. A mass casualty plan has been prepared and nurses and two MSF doctors who joined the team recently have received training on how to implement it; other MSF staff and hospital employees will also receive training. Emergency drugs, notably paediatric and gynaecological, will also be provided and the emergency department building and equipment are to be refurbished and restructured.
MSF has been providing assistance to people displaced by the conflict in northeast Nigeria since May 2014. The project in Umaru Shehu hospital is the latest addition to our operations in the Maiduguri area where our teams also run two clinics in urban districts in Maimusari and Bolori, work in several of the town’s displaced persons camps and respond to emergencies such as the recent cholera epidemic.
