Volunteering in battlefields is her forte
Volunteering often becomes the first and only love for those involved. It’s with dedication and commitment that many volunteers put their lives at risk and in the frontlines of conflicts.
Catherine Moody, head of the mission of medical humanitarian projects in Pakistan for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), is one such person who made an active choice in 2004 to leave her home and job as a paediatric nurse in Liverpool, UK, and serve as an aid worker in Sudan, ne of the worst conflict-hit regions of the world, to provide humanitarian care to people in need.
“It was a very traditional arrangement back then where we had to live out of tents and treat the sick,” Catherine told Khaleej Times during a visit to Dubai last week.
“I was a paediatric nurse and I soon moved over from direct care to project coordination, but my first love remains the medical side,” she said.
From there on, Catherine was posted in Liberia, Darfur and Indonesia among a number of other countries.
In her family, Catherine was the first woman to move away from home. “It was a choice I made because I wanted to work for the community… That’s what drove me. I wanted to study and develop skills and be useful to people,” she said.
Catherine, now with more than 15 years as an aid worker, said the biggest support she received was from her family. “They encouraged me in whatever I did. It’s different for them and it’s not easy but times have changed and communication is easier now.” Currently based in Pakistan and with an experience in dealing with women health, Catherine hopes Pakistani expatriates based in the UAE can give back to their country through volunteering. “I think Pakistanis, especially women in the UAE, should consider international humanitarian volunteering particularly focused on Pakistan,” she said.
Pakistan has good healthcare but it is a semi-developed country with limited access to healthcare for people in remote areas such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, rural Punjab and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, she said. “There is an enormous brain drain of medical representatives from Pakistan,” said Catherine. “They think that working abroad is attractive but to improve the levels of healthcare in the country, people need to come back.”
Catherine suggested that Pakistani professionals based anywhere in the world could come back to their country as expatriates. “They can take up short-term contracts for up to six to 12 months and work in their own community,” she said, adding that gynaecologists were most needed.
However, remoteness poses a challenge despite Pakistan’s ministry of health’s serious approach towards providing the best of healthcare to the people. “Getting people to hospitals on time is also a challenge.”
The MSF is dealing with two main areas for healthcare in Pakistan — providing good access to maternal and child health as well as managing a skin condition caused by a sandfly bite mostly prevalent in Balochistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
“Leishman’s disease has been identified by Pakistan government but it is an expensive and longterm treatment because the drugs used in the treatment are imported,” she said. The disease also carries an enormous social stigma and can be fatal if not treated in time. MSF offers free treatment for all patients and currently it has at least six projects across Pakistan.