PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

November 29, 2023

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is an “international, independent, medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, natural disaster and exclusion from healthcare.” (DWB Website)  It was founded in 1971 and was the recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Peace.  Their activities in 2016 (Annual Report 2016) included 9,792,200 outpatient consultations, 2,536,400 persons treated for malaria, 261,800 children treated for malnutrition, 250,300 births, and 20,600 persons treated for cholera.

One of the issues facing Doctors Without Borders is how to deliver the medical care that all of us receive to persons who live at the ends of the earth or in a situation where all structures and order have broken down?  The Spring 2018 (Vol. 19, No. 1) issue of Alert. The quarterly newsletter for DWB, has an article about how the organization is using Smartphones to deliver medical help to persons in need.

The homes of many persons in need can not be found on any map.  To solve this problem DWB along with MSF and other humanitarian organizations have created the MapSwipe mobile app. “This free app … lets users search satellite imagery for features like houses and roads, identifying population centers so that groups like MSF can plan humanitarian responses.” (Alert, Spring 2018, p. 23)

Another way that DWB is using smartphones is by using a relatively cheap piece of equipment that slips on the phone to examine the retinas of patients.  This replaces expensive pieces of equipment such as CT scanners which are not available.  MSF is using smartphones to collect data quickly and accurately.  This allows it to be shared in real time.

Presently MSF is “testing adapters that will enable medical staff in the field to use their smartphone cameras to capture high-quality photomicrographs – images of specimen slides as seen through a microscope.” (Alert, Spring 2018, p. 23)  This new app will allow doctors in the field to share information with doctors around the world.

In Acts Jesus tells his disciples “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)  Christians are charged to take the Good News to the ends of the earth. This passage has spawn hundreds of translations of the scriptures in other languages so that everyone might hear the Bible in their own tongue.  It has also been the seed for many mission trips to the far corners of the earth to make people’s lives little better.

Doctors With Borders mission is to bring modern medical care to Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  They are doing it under the most difficult of situations.  However, they are being aided in their work by modern technology such as the smartphone to make the resources that are available to all of us available to persons in the most extreme of situations.

(This article was originally published April 29, 2018.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)