Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Med San Saint Frontier,
Speaker 1: or Doctors Without Borders, as it's known here in the US,
Speaker 1: is a humanitarian aid organization that provides medical help to
Speaker 1: war torn areas and developing countries facing epidemics. It's been
Speaker 1: in the news lately because of a US led air
Speaker 1: strike last fall that destroyed an MSF run hospital in
Speaker 1: Condu's Afghanistan, killing over forty people. My guest today is
Speaker 1: jo Ant Leu, the international president of m SF since
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen. Founded by doctors and journalists in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, m SF differs from the Red US and
Speaker 1: that they speak frankly about the injustices they witnessed in
Speaker 1: the area as they serve. That's what it has brought,
Speaker 1: is this medical act with the fact that we speak
Speaker 1: out on what we witness. How would you describe the
Speaker 1: mechanism of how the organization works? For example, where you
Speaker 1: go where you don't go. I'm assuming there's places you
Speaker 1: don't go because you don't feel safe there. You can't
Speaker 1: be guaranteed safety. Obviously in recent months you in places
Speaker 1: where you thought you were saving you weren't. So how
Speaker 1: what's the decision making process about where you going? Why? Well,
Speaker 1: in terms of our basic mandate, it's to bring medical
Speaker 1: humanitary an aid two population in distress either stilling to
Speaker 1: read to mandate disaster, which could be conflict arm conflict
Speaker 1: most of the time, or natural disaster. And so we
Speaker 1: end up working from war zones like South Sudan, the
Speaker 1: Central African Republic, or in the Middle East right now
Speaker 1: in Syria and Yemen. Two places where there's an earthquake
Speaker 1: like we've seen in Haiti, or in response to an
Speaker 1: epidemic like we are seeing with measles in the Democratic
Speaker 1: Republic of Congo. So this is the range of where
Speaker 1: we act. And you mobilize predominantly local forces in terms
Speaker 1: of the medical community in a certain area, or you
Speaker 1: bring in outside medical assistance. Are both, so we do
Speaker 1: both and today met San San Francaire doctors without borders
Speaker 1: to present a workforce are about thirty to thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand people overall national and international, and the ratio is
Speaker 1: for each international we have about ten national worker. We're
Speaker 1: working about seventy countries and we have an income budget
Speaker 1: of one pointry billion. So in a country nine that
Speaker 1: of ten people are local, are are indigenous if you will,
Speaker 1: now when you mentioned that you have thirty to thirty
Speaker 1: five thousand medical professionals worldwide at any given time. They
Speaker 1: are people who work in the medical community who come
Speaker 1: and volunteer. If you they have other jobs. Correct, they're
Speaker 1: not full time staff of the national staff are often
Speaker 1: full time staff. Sometimes you you you do that for
Speaker 1: a few years as a full time and then after
Speaker 1: you just go back to your professional life. You grew
Speaker 1: up in Canada, yes, in Quebec, yes, And when you
Speaker 1: were going to medical school, was this something you considered
Speaker 1: an option? Did you think about this kind of relief work? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those very non original people who when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager, I wanted to be a doctor's
Speaker 1: without borders. So this is something that that has started
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager around about thirteen fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: and and in my quest for meaning in life, I've
Speaker 1: read several books. I think like any other teenager we
Speaker 1: all read then in the Auto Motorcycle and then started Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I read one book that was called lepen Almond
Speaker 1: and the Peace in the World, and it was basically
Speaker 1: a testimony of a physician and work overseas with MSF
Speaker 1: and I remember reading it and I just said, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is so cool, and I said, this is what
Speaker 1: I would like to do. But sometimes you know, you're
Speaker 1: a teenager and you make those kind of of statement
Speaker 1: for yourself, but it takes a while to materialize. But
Speaker 1: I'm someone who always deeply believe in in community life
Speaker 1: and and working for the common public good. So I
Speaker 1: end up working and doing international corporation relief work when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen years old in Africa, and when I
Speaker 1: came back and said, this is it. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go into medicine. I'm going to go and work in
Speaker 1: developing world and that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to do that with Alcos Without Borders. It went
Speaker 1: to McGill in Canada and then came down to New
Speaker 1: York and you were trained at Yeah, I went on
Speaker 1: in my pz R at the n y U. And
Speaker 1: at that time were you only going to school or
Speaker 1: were you taking off sort of speaking, doing some of
Speaker 1: this relief work while you were in school. So during
Speaker 1: my training, I end up doing what we call elective
Speaker 1: medical elective overseas, so I end up going in different places.
Speaker 1: For example, I went to Haiti, I went to Kenya,
Speaker 1: I went to Chad and I end up as well
Speaker 1: working up north because I always told myself that if
Speaker 1: I was willing to go in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: in the war, I should be able to go in
Speaker 1: places where they don't have enough doctor in my country.
Speaker 1: So I always until recently, I always did some work
Speaker 1: up north in Canada. What was the first spot he
Speaker 1: went to where you did either disaster related or war
Speaker 1: related medical relief work. Right after my first year of premed,
Speaker 1: I really wanted to get exposure, so I went around
Speaker 1: and begged to go somewhere. And I've told people I'm
Speaker 1: going to do whatever, you know, clean the floor. I
Speaker 1: just want to go. But why do you think that is?
Speaker 1: What was it in you? Do you understand yourself why
Speaker 1: you wanted to go do that? Hi? I think that
Speaker 1: um being the daughter of a migrant as something to
Speaker 1: play about it. I'm awfully grateful for everything I've gotten
Speaker 1: in life and the fact that I got access to education,
Speaker 1: and somehow, I guess I always wanted to give back
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do something meaningful. I'm someone of action.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit some people say I'm a bit hyperactive.
Speaker 1: So that was a fit for me. Your parents emigrated
Speaker 1: from China, Yes, and they were in the restaurant business. Yes.
Speaker 1: Do you have siblings as well? Yeah? They all professional
Speaker 1: people as well the profession, but not in the medical field.
Speaker 1: And you're the one doctor in the family. And so
Speaker 1: what it was? What was the first place you went
Speaker 1: after Premiate? I went for for three months in Chad
Speaker 1: during the war. It was wartime between Libya and Chad,
Speaker 1: and I work in what we call a dispensary and
Speaker 1: and did primary healthcare. But we were doing deliveries and
Speaker 1: I remember doing those three months. I end up doing
Speaker 1: fifty deliveries. The reality is, when I look back at it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing really when I once I finished my training,
Speaker 1: But that's what I wanted to do. And you were
Speaker 1: there for three months. And when you left, were you
Speaker 1: spent or you upset or were you energized? And you
Speaker 1: wanted more, see more energized. I've I just said, this
Speaker 1: is exactly what I want to do, but I want
Speaker 1: to do it with I want to be skilled to
Speaker 1: do that. You want to go back and finish your training? Yeah,
Speaker 1: was there ever a time you did this when you
Speaker 1: said to yourself, it's too much for me. I don't
Speaker 1: think I can handle this. So they've been tough moment
Speaker 1: And it's not all rosy. I think it's when you
Speaker 1: try to work and you feel yourself so much in danger,
Speaker 1: and then you are as well thinking that you are
Speaker 1: putting other people in danger. And that's what happened to
Speaker 1: me when I was in Chichenia. We were on the
Speaker 1: attack on a regular basis, that's one thing, but the
Speaker 1: threat of being abducted was so huge back then, and
Speaker 1: we knew that if something were ever to happen to
Speaker 1: the staff, the MSF staff, then we will pull out.
Speaker 1: So we were praying for not having anything bad happening
Speaker 1: to us because we knew they were delivering really needed aid.
Speaker 1: On the other end, it was so nerve wracking out
Speaker 1: of fear. Yeah, it's and and and and I hate
Speaker 1: that because I think I was This is so self
Speaker 1: centered and compared to what all those people are going through.
Speaker 1: Come on, get a grip on yourself, go through that.
Speaker 1: So when you were there, but kind of work did
Speaker 1: you primarily do? MSF was running something Nick, It was
Speaker 1: a very difficult time because we were supporting hospital that
Speaker 1: we're basically undercover because it was such a difficult environment
Speaker 1: to work. But you thought that that was at one
Speaker 1: point more than you could bear. It was tough. It
Speaker 1: was my soldiers and war. I mean, you're exposed to
Speaker 1: some pretty tough thing and and and in some other places.
Speaker 1: Is it's just and I don't particularly like to talk
Speaker 1: about it, but because I really do think it's what
Speaker 1: we go through is difficult. But the reality I just
Speaker 1: go through for a couple of weeks of a couple
Speaker 1: of months in my life. I never chanced to leave,
Speaker 1: and I leave and I just go back to my life.
Speaker 1: But I know that Chechen or Congolese people are back
Speaker 1: then or today, Syrian or Yemen people are going through
Speaker 1: that and they cannot go anywhere else. Yeah, So you
Speaker 1: went back to Montreal, and where do you plug it
Speaker 1: and go back to work? What do you do? You're
Speaker 1: in in office for for MSF? No, No, no, when
Speaker 1: when when I was doing this this this is really
Speaker 1: a lot of film work, not as an international president.
Speaker 1: I was going back to my work doing e er.
Speaker 1: I remember when I came back from Therefore into that
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three and two tho four, Every
Speaker 1: single child I saw, I kept telling the parents, this
Speaker 1: is a really well filled child. I had more difficulty
Speaker 1: to adjust back home than to go to the field.
Speaker 1: Your focus is pediatrics, correct, You're a pediatrician. Every time
Speaker 1: I see a representation of what is horror to me abroad,
Speaker 1: I see children suffering, I see children starving, I see
Speaker 1: children dying, I see children injured, and I was wondering
Speaker 1: if that became a particularly I don't want to make
Speaker 1: the whole conversation about suffering and misery, but you seem tough,
Speaker 1: and were you always tough? Did you have to become
Speaker 1: tough to do this job. You have to be the
Speaker 1: tough side, for sure, and you need to focus on
Speaker 1: what you can save in terms of life and not
Speaker 1: focus on your loss. I'm saying that because I think
Speaker 1: it was two thousand and twelve and there was a
Speaker 1: big famine in some of and people were crossing over
Speaker 1: the country to come to Kenya that that camp and
Speaker 1: it will walk for weeks. And I remember that in
Speaker 1: one day I lost six children. And I work in
Speaker 1: the tertiary healthcare center in Montreal. We see eighty thou
Speaker 1: people on a yearly basis and we see six deaths
Speaker 1: over the year, and so in in only a few hours,
Speaker 1: I had seen that. And and I think that this
Speaker 1: this is the huge difficulty. It's the confrontation with death.
Speaker 1: And it was the same thing about Ebola and why
Speaker 1: a Bola was so difficult at the human level, it's
Speaker 1: the confrontation on a daily basis with death. We are
Speaker 1: trained to save lives and what we did with the
Speaker 1: Bola is of our patient. We lost them. And I
Speaker 1: always told myself, whatever I can do to make sure
Speaker 1: that we cannot repeat history, in my very modest capacity,
Speaker 1: is that we try to do it. I think it's
Speaker 1: completely abnormal that we have somehow found out about the
Speaker 1: virus in nineteen six but despite that, more than four
Speaker 1: years afterwards we had no treatment, no vaccine, and no
Speaker 1: rapid dynastic tools. And that's unacceptable that we had to
Speaker 1: face that. And I think today this is the challenge
Speaker 1: about everything the century has to offer to us. We
Speaker 1: need to put our act together because we have other
Speaker 1: threats today that I think we can somehow troubles should
Speaker 1: a head of time. And this is something about well,
Speaker 1: I think that antibiotic resistance is a big one. It's
Speaker 1: you know, we keep you know, fantasizing about what it
Speaker 1: would be the next bio threat, the next pandemic. It's
Speaker 1: actually already here. So we're gonna basically save our grandparents
Speaker 1: from their triple bypass and they're gonna die for the
Speaker 1: pneumonia because we would not get the right antibiotic to
Speaker 1: save them. When you say the antibiotic resistance, we have
Speaker 1: built up people's tolerance to antibiotics and now we have
Speaker 1: we have nothing left or we're running out of bullets
Speaker 1: to kill these organizing And this is what I Bola
Speaker 1: start us is like something may happen in somewhere in
Speaker 1: the distant world that we don't even know where to
Speaker 1: put on the map, but it will have replaying effect
Speaker 1: and your comfortable New York City life and you you
Speaker 1: went through that with Bola. When you are going back
Speaker 1: and forth to these hot spots, if you will, or
Speaker 1: whatever term you want to use, your going back and
Speaker 1: doing all this good work and you're coming back to
Speaker 1: Canada finish your training. What year and what goes into
Speaker 1: the decision for you to get into the administrative level
Speaker 1: of MSF. I made the conscious decision that's that's what
Speaker 1: I wanted because I believe that today we need more
Speaker 1: leadership in terms of health issues. But back then I
Speaker 1: didn't have a precise idea that I would do that.
Speaker 1: And then the position open up and I ran for
Speaker 1: it and I got elected. So what year was that?
Speaker 1: It's June. So actually my mandate is coming up for
Speaker 1: term now, and you are eligible to do it again
Speaker 1: or you don't get a second term, you need to run.
Speaker 1: You're gonna run? Are you going to run? Most likely?
Speaker 1: I thought we were going to get your campaign announcement
Speaker 1: on our show How Exciting Um? What is around the world?
Speaker 1: What would you say or the primary causes of the
Speaker 1: problems that you see? Are they purely political? Is it diet?
Speaker 1: Is it food? Is it a hygiene? Is a cleanliness?
Speaker 1: What are the things you think can happen that will
Speaker 1: change the situation you've come across in the world. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I'm that competent to answer this very
Speaker 1: complex question. I remember once I was asked, if you
Speaker 1: had one wish, what would you wish for the world,
Speaker 1: and I would said enough water. That's a problem. It's
Speaker 1: a huge issue because if you don't have enough water,
Speaker 1: then you don't you can do agriculture, you can feed yourself,
Speaker 1: but as well after that you can clean yourself and
Speaker 1: you cannot prevent infection. And so I really to think
Speaker 1: that if you want a thriving society, you need to
Speaker 1: be fed. In the work that you did in certain
Speaker 1: areas of the world, particularly in Africa where there was drought,
Speaker 1: where there was persistent drought, were you led to believe
Speaker 1: by people you work with that climate change was a
Speaker 1: big part of that. I think it plays a role,
Speaker 1: and I can see to which extent, but we know
Speaker 1: that it's it's a game changer before disaster strikes. MSF
Speaker 1: places doctors as well as water and sanitation experts in
Speaker 1: high risk areas. Their website reports that they've treated their
Speaker 1: first patient from Hades two earthquake within three minutes. Listen
Speaker 1: to the Here's the Thing archive where Dr Robert Lusting
Speaker 1: talks about what he would do to solve the world's
Speaker 1: obesity problem. I would think very strongly about limiting access
Speaker 1: of sugar beverages to infants and children like zero. Take
Speaker 1: a listen at Here's the Thing dot org. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Joanne Leeu, the international president of Medicine
Speaker 1: San Frontier or Doctors Without Borders, the international aid organization
Speaker 1: that provides medical relief to countries in need. In two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, unable to secure permission to provide care for
Speaker 1: undocumented migrants, MSF pulled out of Thailand. They had been
Speaker 1: there for thirty five years. We don't like to think
Speaker 1: of ourselves as being a permanent presence because it's need basis.
Speaker 1: But the reality there are some conflicts that have been
Speaker 1: ongoing for decades. But if we look at our portfolio
Speaker 1: of countries where we are, it's basically a third of
Speaker 1: where we work it's in conflict area, about the third
Speaker 1: of it it is in post conflict area, and and
Speaker 1: about the third it's it's it's it's roughly in what
Speaker 1: I call table environment, where we work more in terms
Speaker 1: of either access to healthcare or for epidemics or for
Speaker 1: pandemic like HIV and So the reality is it's context
Speaker 1: like democratic complique of Congo. We've been there for decades
Speaker 1: south so that I was visiting it this far. We've
Speaker 1: been there since nine three because we haven't found a
Speaker 1: political solution to what happened. We wish we could leave,
Speaker 1: but every year there's more needs, so or there's sustained needs.
Speaker 1: Where you talk about AIDS, which society has been attempting
Speaker 1: to deal with the AIDS epidemic for h thirty five years,
Speaker 1: now more than thirty five years. What needs to change
Speaker 1: for AIDS to turn around? No, I think there is.
Speaker 1: There's been a deceleration in a few areas. But the
Speaker 1: reality is what we're facing is people have forgotten about
Speaker 1: about it. There was a full generation who were really
Speaker 1: aware about AIDS and how it was transmitted, and and
Speaker 1: now there's the new generation didn't go through the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, so safe sex is not as much of
Speaker 1: an imperative as what it was in our generation. There
Speaker 1: someone else's problem. Yes, So that's interesting because the fastest
Speaker 1: growing population that is getting infected or young adult nowadays.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking about I know the figures for for example,
Speaker 1: for Canada, but we know that that there's the young
Speaker 1: and the developed world. Yeah, yeah, it's just because that
Speaker 1: new generation didn't go through for us. You know, the
Speaker 1: real issue for a's right now. It's it's about making
Speaker 1: sure that that is going to stay as a priority.
Speaker 1: A disease has been in the landscape for such a
Speaker 1: long time, to keep the imperitive, to continue to find
Speaker 1: the right tools and treatment. The is still looking for example,
Speaker 1: for combined therapy in surrupt for children that is palatable
Speaker 1: after so many years. Still we're fighting for that. We're
Speaker 1: doing that work. Well, we are somehow I msself doing
Speaker 1: it through our research and development developing your own drugs.
Speaker 1: We have actually have helped the creation of what we
Speaker 1: call Drug Fund Elected Disease Initiative, And what they do
Speaker 1: is they developed combined therapy of our existing drugs or
Speaker 1: developed new drugs from the Elected Disease And so we
Speaker 1: have asked them to look into combined therapy for children
Speaker 1: formula for AIDS. UM. I'm assuming you don't do any
Speaker 1: work in the United States, or do you MSF is
Speaker 1: in the United States. Well, we have looked into it.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we've been on the regular
Speaker 1: basis questioning ourselves is about check as disease. And because
Speaker 1: of the immigration pattern here, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: from out America that I have this disease. But described
Speaker 1: the disease. It's a disease that basically has no huge
Speaker 1: effect when you get infected initially, but down the road
Speaker 1: you've got heart failure. It's through a type of mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: But and it's it's the family of of of the parasite.
Speaker 1: This is the same family of the sleeping sickness. It's
Speaker 1: it has he has like similarities. Tell me in the
Speaker 1: time that we have left, um, where were you when
Speaker 1: you heard about condos? Where where were you at the
Speaker 1: time that that attack occurred. I was in a plane
Speaker 1: and actually I was just lending and I was coming
Speaker 1: back from from South Sudan and and basically I got
Speaker 1: the message through email because people couldn't reach to me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a plane and all that. So, but I've
Speaker 1: heard that our hospital has been attacked and wouldn't know
Speaker 1: that the number of casualty, And so I think for
Speaker 1: for the audience, I think we we we have to
Speaker 1: be clear that conduced was a tragic, unprecedented event for
Speaker 1: MSF Doctors Without Borders organization in forty four years of existence.
Speaker 1: We never had such a big loss in terms of
Speaker 1: patient and staff in one attack. Conduce for me, and
Speaker 1: I think for many of my colleague there's going to
Speaker 1: be a pre CONDUCD in the past Conduce. And I
Speaker 1: know Conduced fairly well because I was there during the
Speaker 1: winter of twenty fifteen, actually visited our project, and because
Speaker 1: there was some weather issue, I end up staying there
Speaker 1: for almost ten days, so I end up rounding patient,
Speaker 1: getting to know our staff, and I remember distinctly about Conduced,
Speaker 1: how impressed I was and and how I thought Conduced
Speaker 1: was so special, And I remember my words when I
Speaker 1: came back, I said, Conduced is the jam of the
Speaker 1: northeast Afghanistan. We have managed to create a medical, humanitarian
Speaker 1: neutral space where everybody from both sides I think that
Speaker 1: it's safe to come and be cared for, and they
Speaker 1: know they're going to get high level of care. And
Speaker 1: both sides were coming, Yes, both side were coming. And
Speaker 1: it was not this little bush hospital. It was existing
Speaker 1: since twenty eleven. We had a hundred beds. We scale
Speaker 1: up our r c U to AID beds. It was
Speaker 1: better occupancive more than most of the time and people
Speaker 1: were walking days to come and be care in our
Speaker 1: trauma center because they knew it was one of the
Speaker 1: good place to be cared for. And so I remember
Speaker 1: because it was so striking. We managed to create this
Speaker 1: atmosphere where we have the surgeon, the intensive is the physio,
Speaker 1: third prisonmental health together every day doing rounds together and
Speaker 1: rounding the hundred patients together. We managed to do that.
Speaker 1: We had as well um digital X ray. I remember
Speaker 1: in the morning we will review all the admission of
Speaker 1: the night before. It was really an impressive center. And
Speaker 1: for some reason, I remember that I thought it was
Speaker 1: so special that I just said, I don't know how
Speaker 1: long it's gonna last. And I've been with him SF
Speaker 1: almost twenty years now and I've seen so many trauma
Speaker 1: center that one was special. Who we built the facility,
Speaker 1: someone had built it, a new occupied it or msfort
Speaker 1: built build it, and it just built it. There was
Speaker 1: only like a sort of a central building. But we
Speaker 1: had to read the roof and everything and make it
Speaker 1: a hospital basically. Ah And that's what we did. In
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, after few years of negotiation with both parties
Speaker 1: and the local authorities, the Afghans and the Americans back
Speaker 1: there was the two tribes there exactly, and when you
Speaker 1: would have these people come to the facility both sides,
Speaker 1: as you say, would you separate them? It's a different necessarily,
Speaker 1: And that's interesting. That's interesting you asked this question because
Speaker 1: I asked the same question when I went there, because
Speaker 1: I thought it was so pick elier. And now now
Speaker 1: people were patients. Yeah, people were patient, and that's what
Speaker 1: we keep saying. You know, a combatant is a patient. Now,
Speaker 1: how many staff members were in the building at the
Speaker 1: time of the attack, well, about a hundred, and how
Speaker 1: many survived, Well, we we lost fourteen them, so fourteen died.
Speaker 1: And how many of the patients died? And the roughly
Speaker 1: when a hundred patients? We we we we we had
Speaker 1: we had forty two. So that's the math of forty
Speaker 1: two minus fourteen. So that's basically it. There have obviously
Speaker 1: been discussions and they have been calls for an independent
Speaker 1: investigation as to what happened. And what is your view
Speaker 1: on that now and what do you think is likely
Speaker 1: to happen or not happen. Our take on this is
Speaker 1: that I think it's difficult to be the prepetors and
Speaker 1: the judge at the same time and being completely impartial
Speaker 1: about about the findings. We don't have access to the investigation,
Speaker 1: the American investigation. We have access to the briefing that
Speaker 1: that got released a few thousand words of a three report,
Speaker 1: and we have still a lot of questions. And basically
Speaker 1: what I want to know is what has led to
Speaker 1: that and making sure that history will not repeat itself.
Speaker 1: And what I'd like to compare to it's to medical error.
Speaker 1: I'm a physician. Medical errors happened in my hospital, and
Speaker 1: we all know that the party is involved. Never do
Speaker 1: the investigation, and the goal of this is to make
Speaker 1: sure that will do and create change that will ensure
Speaker 1: that will not repeat the same type of mistake. And
Speaker 1: you want the United States military to do the mortality
Speaker 1: and morbidity study on this, and they're not going to. No,
Speaker 1: they've done the investigation, but it's investigation. I would say,
Speaker 1: with respect to the procedure and all that it's not
Speaker 1: against international humanitary and law, but we operate in those
Speaker 1: very difficult environment because as a medical humanity and organization
Speaker 1: we are under the assumption that the international humanity and
Speaker 1: law are respected. What does it mean? It means that
Speaker 1: healthcare access is protected and of guarded in war zones,
Speaker 1: and it means that population can come to the hospital,
Speaker 1: but once they are in a hospital, we don't attack
Speaker 1: a hospital. We don't attack patient. We don't like that
Speaker 1: care take care. We don't attack healthcare worker. And I
Speaker 1: do believe that when you struggle for your life in
Speaker 1: the I see you, you should not have to say
Speaker 1: that you might get a bomb on your head. And
Speaker 1: I think that we have that shared humanity. I think
Speaker 1: everybody can understand that if you bring you six month
Speaker 1: old child in and why you because it's sick, You
Speaker 1: don't want to have to care to just say am
Speaker 1: I going to get a bomb in my head? It's
Speaker 1: it's just basic thing. What is the current position of
Speaker 1: the United States government as to what happened? The date
Speaker 1: of the attack was winning again October thre so it
Speaker 1: was not that long ago. And in the ensuing weeks,
Speaker 1: did they not say that they suspected that there were
Speaker 1: terrorists inside that group or was it did they say
Speaker 1: it's completely an accident, or did they admit that they
Speaker 1: deliberately attack that facility because there were targets inside that building. No,
Speaker 1: the investigation is saying that there were errors errors at
Speaker 1: different level human level, technical level, procedural level. And we
Speaker 1: hear that we do grant the fact that the US
Speaker 1: a stick and responsibility for what happened. And I think
Speaker 1: this is something that we have to acknowledge as an
Speaker 1: august because you have to understand that we're very upset
Speaker 1: and and and it's it's one thing in addition to
Speaker 1: our morning. We are upset and we have anger. That
Speaker 1: being said is I just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: it won't happen again. So how can I make sure
Speaker 1: of that? The government indicated that they're willing to work
Speaker 1: with you established productcols that it won't happen again. So
Speaker 1: this is this is what we are right now into
Speaker 1: into a dialogue dialogue with them. Does it proceeding to
Speaker 1: your satisfaction? A think we had our moment, this moment
Speaker 1: and I think right after the end, and again I
Speaker 1: think there was a lot of emotion in that. But
Speaker 1: I think now we are re establishing good channel of
Speaker 1: communication towards the status of the facility and conduce now
Speaker 1: it's reopen or is this smashed the pieces? Well, the
Speaker 1: thing is it was a really precise attack and so
Speaker 1: it's the main building. It's been attacked, and so that building,
Speaker 1: I always say it's been burned to the bone. And
Speaker 1: I'm saying that because I've seen it with my eyes.
Speaker 1: I've seen it before in February and March twenty fift
Speaker 1: and I've seen it again when I went for the
Speaker 1: commoration day forty days after the attack, and I went
Speaker 1: through a lot of difficult things since I'm my position,
Speaker 1: but I think it was one of the toughest one
Speaker 1: because many of our staff I've survived, but they've been injured.
Speaker 1: And when I was there, I met with all our
Speaker 1: injured staff, and I met as well with all the
Speaker 1: families of our staff we have died, and I sat
Speaker 1: and I listened to them, and I would always always
Speaker 1: remember one of my staff, one of our emergency inners,
Speaker 1: who got one of his arm amputated during the attack,
Speaker 1: just look at me and just said, you have told
Speaker 1: us over and over again that conduced from my center
Speaker 1: as a safe place. We believed you. And then he
Speaker 1: looked at me. He wiped tears on his right cheeks
Speaker 1: with his right arm, and he just said, did you
Speaker 1: know that we will get balm? And I looked at him,
Speaker 1: and I just said, you have some right to ask
Speaker 1: the question, and the only answer I can tell you is,
Speaker 1: until October three, I thought that conduced from a center
Speaker 1: was a safe place. And what we are fighting today
Speaker 1: we're fighting for that. We're fighting two safeguard and maintain
Speaker 1: that medical humanitarian neutral space in war zones and for
Speaker 1: m SF. The stakes are so high because that's some
Speaker 1: of our core ay that we gave, but as well
Speaker 1: what we realize nowadays in conflict area like Yemen, Syria,
Speaker 1: South Sudan, Central African Republic, there's very few ends on actors,
Speaker 1: and if we change the rule of the game of
Speaker 1: protecting neutral medical space, it's going to be total chaos.
Speaker 1: I really do think that it's part of our shared
Speaker 1: humanity to safeguard that. I still believe that wars rules
Speaker 1: in medicine. San Frontier won the Nobel Peace Prize. John Orbinski,
Speaker 1: MSF's president at the time, said the following in his
Speaker 1: acceptance speech. Silence has long been confused with neutrality and
Speaker 1: has been presented as a necessary condition for humanitarian action.
Speaker 1: From its beginning. MSF was created in opposition to this assumption.
Speaker 1: We are not sure that words can always save lives,
Speaker 1: but we know that silence can certainly kill. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the Thing two.