Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services.
—
Universal Declaration of Human Rights

MAF Medical Safaris (MMS)

It was almost 70 years ago that the above statement was written down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Over the last decades, more and more people have gained access to a good standard of living, and health care is within reach for millions of people. In some countries medical care is available for the whole population; in other countries only a select group has access to it.

Medical Care in Chad

Within the cities and larger villages of Chad there are hospitals and good basic medical care is available for those that have the means to pay for it. For poor people who live in the cities, medical care is more difficult to access. 

In the rural areas the situation is even more challenging. In many places the health centres are unstaffed by medical practitioners due to the poverty and geographical inaccessibility of these areas. In some remote places there isn’t even a health centre and the villagers have to travel for days to be able to get a consultation. Many people die from diseases and incidents that could have been treated if medical care was available.

Medical Safaris

For almost 15 years, MAF has been facilitating medical safaris. We organise these together with medical partners, and with the authorisation and support of the government. The safaris are outreaches to some of the remote villages and areas where there is no medical care available. Our medical partners take care of the medical work and MAF helps to overcome the geographical boundaries by delivering the medical team to the remote village and collecting them after they have finished their clinics.

During a normal medical safari, the team spend between five and 10 days in an area. In this time, the medical team will usually see hundreds of patients, perform several smaller surgeries and often a few more major operations. On some occasions, lives have literally been saved during these safaris.

This work would not be possible without the help of those that fund these outreaches, our medical partners and many volunteers. A big thank you to all involved.