Inside Geneva’s Summer Profiles: Trish Newport

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Trish Newport of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Switzerland is Inside Geneva’s first summer profile this year.

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“My grandma was a humanitarian. She had worked in Malawi and I remember when I was about 10 years old, she said to me, ‘When you grow up and become a humanitarian, you should work for MSF because they really have strong values and ethics that you will appreciate,’” says Newport.

Originally from Canada, she has worked all over the world, in the most challenging environments.

“I worked a lot in acute malnutrition response for a number of years, including in Niger. It’s hard to see, but you can really do something. For example, a little malnourished child comes in and, if they get Plumpy Nut and proper care for six weeks, they become a fat little cute kid and they go home,” she says.

Now she’s at the heart of MSF’s Ebola response, in Bunia, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“It’s not just an Ebola outbreak. It’s an Ebola outbreak in a context with massive humanitarian needs, that is highly insecure and where there’s ongoing conflict. We are seeing the outbreak spread into highly insecure areas, where we hear about community deaths but you don’t have access to them to take samples and see if it’s Ebola or not, or to have a proper Ebola response.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) says this outbreak is spreading at record speed.

“A mother had her child, the child was sick, and then the mother died of Ebola. The grandmother took the baby and came to where our project is, and the grandmother died. The baby is now sick with Ebola, none of the family wants to go near the child because everyone who touches the child dies. It just breaks your heart,” says Newport.

“And we are all human and so I have a hard time understanding why we can’t connect that way,” she says.

Listen to the full interview with host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.

Find out more about the ‘Inside Geneva’ podcast and our other Swiss podcasts in English here.

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