Doctors Without Borders forced to leave Russia
In the statement on their website, Médecins Sans Frontières/ (MSF) explains that in August this year they received a letter from the Ministry of Justice of Russia, with the decision to withdraw the affiliate office of the non-profit association in Russia because, as the Ministry puts it, the MSF’s activity did not correlate with the organization’s standing order. What exactly is meant by that has remained unclear so far.
“It is with a heavy heart that we have to close our activities in Russia,” Yashovardhan, head of MSF programs in Russia, is quoted as saying. “Our organisation’s work is guided by the principles of independence, impartiality, and neutrality, and medical ethics. We provide assistance based on the needs.”
The MSF has been active in Russia since 1992 and has been involved in a series of health programs essential for the Russian population. For example, in Arkhangelsk, a city in the Russian north, where MSF has been involved in tuberculosis treatments.
Tuberculosis is one of the major health issues in the country, where, according to the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, in 2022 yet another spike in the disease had been registered,
As Russia’s Health Ministry reported earlier on their website, they have been cooperating closely with the Russian branch of the “Médecins Sans Frontières” to eliminate tuberculosis:
“This is an expensive therapy, the cost of a course varies from two thousand to one and a half million rubles and more, – the Minister of Health of the Arkhangelsk region Anton Karpunov was quoted as saying on the Ministry’s website. – “There are situations when we cannot provide a citizen with a full package of drugs due to their high cost or absence on the Russian market. Then non-profit organizations come to the rescue”, – the Minister explained.
In the MSF’s statement about withdrawing from Russia, the organization highlights that by 2024, 41 patients in the Arkhangelsk and Ivanovo regions started treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis within the program in cooperation with the Russian health authorities.
It’s unclear why, in such a context, the MSF is still being closed by Russian authorities and how the MSF’s support could be replaced.
Besides Arkhangelsk and Ivanovo, Doctors Without Borders also operated in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Kemerovo region, Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan regions.
Many other NGO’s have recently stopped their operations in Russia as what experts with Amnesty International see as a crackdown on any independent organizations, who dare to defend human rights and speak the truth. Also, any affiliation with foreign funding is branded as an “enemy” by the Russian authorities.
