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24 hours in Magaria ITFC

Gallery: Magaria: 24 hours with the teams

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Since 2005, MSF has been supporting the Ministry of Public Health in Magaria, Zinder region, to reduce the mortality rate of children under five. MSF has been working in health structures that provide paediatric and nutritional care. 
MSF works in Magaria hospital’s paediatric unit and in the Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITCF). During the peak season for malnutrition and malaria, which usually runs from June to November, MSF also supports community health centres and offers primary healthcare and ensures treatment for severe malnutrition in children under five. In Magaria hospital’s paediatric unit, the teams treat children who have been hospitalised for severe illnesses other than malnutrition. They also support the Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITCF), where children with severe malnutrition and related illnesses such as malaria, respiratory infections or diarrhoea are treated. MSF teams also vaccinate the children to ensure that those hospitalised in the paediatric unit and the ITFC have all their immunisations.

24 hours in Magaria ITFC
A new day begins at Magaria hospital’s paediatric unit. Mothers stay with their hospitalised children, and in the morning, one of the first things they do is go to the washing area. Hygiene awareness is an important job undertaken by the MSF team.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
MSF provides three meals a day to the mothers or other caretakers whose children have been admitted to the paediatric unit. Here, a mother has come to collect her morning meal.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
Inside Magaria hospital’s paediatric unit. Early in the morning, MSF paediatrician Julia Rappenecker, accompanied by the centre’s medical personnel, check on the children who have been admitted to the intensive care unit in the last 24 hours.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
Fatima Lawan delivered triplets at Magaria hospital. One did not survive the birth; the other two, at 35 days old, are being cared for in the hospital’s paediatric unit.
Erwan Rogard
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
Mothers taking part in a cooking workshop organised by MSF. They are learning to make a nutrition-rich porridge. These cooking lessons are an important part of awareness-raising among the mothers, to aid the recovery of their children and ease their return home.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
MSF vaccinating the children who are being treated in the paediatric unit, including those in the Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITFC). These children were not previously vaccinated during the Ministry of Public Health’s expanded immunisation programme. Between January and March 2017, 3,376 vaccines were administered.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
In the morning, before the hospital’s paediatric unit opens its doors to visitors, MSF health promoters explain to the families the importance of sharing good news and encouragement with the patients and their caretakers.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
Children playing in front of a grandmother who has come to visit her grand-daughter and daughter who are in the Magaria Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITFC).
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
Magaria hospital’s paediatric unit staff visit the different departments to follow up on patients and ensure that all children and their caretakers are sleeping under mosquito nets.
Erwan Rogard/MSF
24 hours in Magaria ITFC
Night has fallen on Magaria. A paediatric unit staff member updates the board with the number of the patients in each department.
Erwan Rogard/MSF