For another year, the organizations Medicos Mundi Catalunya and Farmacéuticos Mundi are holding the Health, Rights, and Action Film Festival. The festival's objective is to create a meeting space that invites reflection on a global struggle: the defense of the right to health. For this edition, they have invited Juan Ciudad, an NGO, to participate in the debate on the Ebola epidemic on Thursday, April 28th. Health emergencies: What model of health cooperation do we want? After the screening of the documentary "Outbreak. Could Ebola have been avoided?"
Speaking on behalf of our organization were Guillermo VĂĄzquez, a doctor specializing in tropical diseases and an international volunteer with Juan Ciudad ONGD in various projects in Africa - including the reopening of St. Joseph's Hospital in Monrovia during the Ebola epidemic in 2014 - and Adriana Castro, Communications Manager for Juan Ciudad ONGD, who managed the communications crisis following the repatriation of Brother Miguel Pajares, who died of Ebola in August 2014.
Eduardo GarcĂa Langarica, a physician and president of the Federation of Medicus Mundi Associations in Spain, and journalist Carlos Bajo, who moderated the debate, also participated in the debate.
Among other things, Dr. Guillermo VĂĄzquez explained that he was in Monrovia in the fall of 2014 to support the reopening of St. Joseph's Hospital in Monrovia, and the difficulties that existed at that time, such as the enormous pressure to make it an Ebola treatment center, when the Hospitaller Order considered that there was another emergency that was not being addressed, and that was the care of other diseases that cause higher mortality, such as malaria, in addition to the fact that there were no maternity or pediatric services that the population could go to, Liberia being one of the countries that already registered one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world.
Adriana Castro, for her part, explained that Juan Ciudad ONGD launched its campaign "Let's Stop Ebola in West Africa" on June 10, 2014, but it wasn't until early August, when news of Brother Miguel Pajares's infection broke, that the media began to respond, given the social alarm generated in Spain by his repatriation, leaving the critical situation that Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were experiencing in the midst of the outbreak of the epidemic in the background.
Eduardo GarcĂa Langarica emphasized the importance of cooperating and promoting the strengthening of these countries' health systems, which were already very fragile and understaffed before Ebola and have been severely damaged by the epidemic.
Journalist Carlos Bajo wanted to highlight the inequality that exists in terms of access to healthcare services between countries affected by Ebola and Western countries, as well as the important role played by local African personnel, which has not been sufficiently reported in the press.
The Juan Ciudad NGO team would like to thank Medicus Mundi and Farmamudi, with whom they have been working for years to send medicines to hospitals and healthcare centers in Africa and Latin America, for inviting them to participate in this debate, as these spaces for reflection open to the public are very valuable.
Watch the documentary "Outbreak":
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/outbreak
More information about the exhibition, which runs until May 5:
