Stories From Patients & Staff

Louise Timbs is a nurse from Queensland who has completed nine assignments with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) since 2014. Louise has recently returned for the second time from Gaza, Palestine, where she worked as nursing activity manager for several MSF teams.

Gabriel Mayorga Garzón shares insights to the role of humanitarian affairs manager in Haiti, where he has been working since mid-2024.

An emergency medical coordinator is among the first of our staff members to respond to the major earthquake in Myanmar. While the damage she sees is challenging, a community spirit resonates. But can it last?

From October 2023 to January 2025, over 1.9 million Palestinians were displaced within Gaza. After the ceasefire in January 2025, more than half a million people returned to their homes in the north of the enclave. In the city of Beit Lahia, Hanan, Anwar, Nour, Sahar and Deema live together in the rubble of their former home. 

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has been providing surgical care for more than 40 years. Our highly skilled surgeons, anaesthetists, and obstetrician-gynaecologists contribute to treating patients affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters and lack of access to healthcare.

They attacked in the morning. “We ran to escape,” says a woman who had been caring for her children and a sick mother who could not walk. A harrowing journey to the relative safety of the Nuba range of South Kordofan followed. “I carried my mother on a donkey cart. When we were near the mountains, we stopped to bury her. My two brothers were shot and killed.”

“I’m in the twilight of my career, and after having worked long hours in senior positions in different organisations, I decided to take a break. And that’s when I came across MSF and I thought of making my contribution in a different setting", Gail Page.

Sophie Phelan, an epidemiologist from Brisbane embarked on her second assignment with Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She was tasked with setting up a surveillance system for MPOX and cholera outbreaks, but she also had another goal—mastering French. 

In January 2025, MSF deployed an emergency response in Mayom, a remote area in South Sudan, to respond to the heavy escalation in cholera cases. The response involved vaccinating over 20,000 people, which had a great impact on the cholera outbreak. But the project revealed major gaps in access to healthcare in this region.

Have you ever worked in an area where access to phones and the internet was extremely limited? Have you diagnosed a patient without the diagnostic tests you might be used to? Situations like these are common in the areas MSF works, which is why we are looking for candidates with significant experience working in remote, low-resource settings.