Hi There,

When working in communities without access to basic resources, performing a lifesaving surgery often requires some improvisation. A few years ago, amid a total blackout, I delivered a baby and saved a mother’s life under the light of a few cell phones and a laryngoscope, which is a medical device used to intubate people. 



This is one story from my time at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Betou, Congo – It’s about two o’clock in the morning. The night guard from our hospital is knocking at my door. A pregnant woman is in trouble, he tells me, and I’m needed back at the hospital right away. 

It’s monsoon season, so getting to the hospital means driving through a huge rainstorm. When I finally arrive, the midwife and I decide that without an immediate C-section, the mother and her baby are going to die.

We move quickly to prep the patient. I make the incision and, suddenly, the lights go out. It’s pitch black and the power doesn’t come back on. All I hear is the rain on the roof and my heart beating out of my chest. 

But there’s no time to waste—over the next five minutes, nurses and other medical staff are holding up their cell phones to light my way in the darkness. With the help of six phones and the anesthetist’s laryngoscope, I complete the surgery. The woman and her baby survive.



For me, this experience encapsulates what Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is all about. MSF surgical teams provide lifesaving care even in the most difficult situations to help people who have no other option. Together as a team, and as an organization, we are a light shining through for people in their darkest hours. 

During my time as an MSF surgeon, I’ve witnessed how your generosity can make a meaningful difference for people in urgent need of medical care.

Friend, a gift from you today can help pay for the surgical gloves I wear, the instruments I use to perform surgery, the dressings I put on people’s wounds, and more. Please, make your first gift today to support MSF teams in more than 70 countries around the world.

Sincerely,

Dr. David Kuwayama
Doctors Without Borders Surgeon;today>