In 2012, when we founded Hospitals Beyond Boundaries (HBB), a tiny non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in Malaysia, only few youths were interested in the idea of an organisation that goes into poor countries to build health centres sustained by local communities. Many preferred the action and adventure of emergency response to war, crisis and natural […]
Residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa have long enjoyed one of the longest life expectancies in the world. As well as having the highest population of centenarians, Okinawa also boasts low disability rates. This has been largely attributed to the Okinawa diet which is nutrient and calorie-rich. Although it includes a relatively small amount […]
Predictive health monitoring is widely used in engineering applications to detect damage to infrastructure as early as possible. Forecasting failure rather than merely detecting failure once it occurs helps to reduce the downtime of systems, and, ideally, performing predictive maintenance to avoid downtime completely. With this approach already widely used in many fields from commercial […]
Read More… from Can a rural hand pump tell you it’s not well?
From day one of training as a midwife, we are taught the importance of the principle contained in the Hippocratic oath of “do no harm”. Yet on a recent trip to Tanzania with the development charity WaterAid we met committed, caring, intelligent midwives forced to work in a way that they knew put the mothers […]
I first met Nelson Mandela in the Royal Pavilion at Horse Guards on Tuesday, 9th July 1996 at the beginning of his State Visit to the United Kingdom as President of the Republic of South Africa. As we awaited his arrival, such was Her Majesty the Queen’s concern for his health that she said to […]
So I am out of the loop. Out of touch with maternity care in the UK you could say. After all, I do not practise medicine in the UK. I trained in England, my country of birth, before being relocated, courtesy of my husband’s job, to a lecturer’s post in obstetrics in Hong Kong. That […]
The Yemen is an ancient and tribal country situated at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It was originally known as Arabia Felix, or ‘Fortunate Arabia’, but 50 years ago it was a divided country. The northern part, with its capital at Sana, was ruled by an Imam, who although having some religious function, […]
Read More… from A ground-breaking elective in the Yemen – over 50 years ago.
Lassa fever is a deadly viral hemorrhagic disease in the same broad family as Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), Dengue and Yellow fever. Lassa fever causes an acute febrile illness, with bleeding and death in severe cases. Lassa fever was first described in Nigeria 1969 in Lassa Town, Borno State, from where the disease derived its […]
Read More… from A view from the front lines of Nigeria’s Lassa Fever outbreak
As of 31 December, at least 3,771 people had died whilst attempting the sea crossing to Europe in 2015. In 2015 over one million refugees had reached Europe across the Mediterranean, mainly to Greece and Italy. Of these, 3,735 were missing, believed drowned. In May 2015 volunteers from the medical humanitarian organisation ‘Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF), […]
Read More… from Refugee Crisis – At Sea in a Floating Coffin
Lake Tanganyika is the most important body of water in the world that few have ever heard of. Surrounded by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Burundi, and Zambia, and holding nearly a fifth of Earth’s available fresh water and over 600 unique species, Lake Tanganyika is one of the world’s great eco-systems and also […]