Inside Geneva’s Summer Profiles: Trish Newport

Trish Newport of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Switzerland is Inside Geneva’s first summer profile this year.

“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 you 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 has high insecurity and where there’s ongoing conflict. We see the outbreak is starting to go into areas with high insecurity, where we hear about community deaths but you don’t have access to them, to be actually sampling to 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, came to where our project is, and the grandmother died. The baby is now sick with Ebola, none of the family wants to come to the child because everyone that touches the child dies. It just breaks your heart,” says Newport. 

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

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview. 

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

SwissInfo

Cold Open From The Frontline

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podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 0:09

This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen Folkes, and this is a production from SwissInfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

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 you become a humanitarian, you should work for Medicine Soft Frontier because they really have strong values and ethics that you will appreciate.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

The World Health Organization says the rate Ebola is infecting people means there is community transmission. And the WHO warns without more public health measures, the virus could spread to new areas.

SPEAKER_05 0:50

It's not just an Ebola outbreak. It's an Ebola outbreak in a context with massive, massive humanitarian needs.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

A place to be buried quickly. More bodies keep arriving. The number of Ebola cases growing as health authorities struggle to contain the outbreak.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

A mother had her child, the child was sick, and then the mother died of Ebola. The grandmother took the baby, came to where our project is, the grandmother died, the baby is now sick with Ebola. None of the family wants to come to the child because everyone that touches the family the child dies. It it just breaks your heart.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

The virus spreading through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, outrunning teams trying to contain it.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

It's now the third largest Ebola outbreak on record. And in the past months, it has expanded faster than any previous outbreak.

SPEAKER_05 2:01

And people here, they're people. And we're all humans. And so I have a hard time understanding why we can't connect that way.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Hello

Why This Ebola Outbreak Is Different

SPEAKER_03 2:15

and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Folk, and it's that time of year again. We're starting our regular series of summer profiles. And today we've got a really topical one for you. What's it like working to tackle an Ebola outbreak? What makes someone volunteer for such a dangerous mission? Right now, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the current Ebola outbreak is, the World Health Organization says, the fastest spreading on record. It's happening in a region which has suffered conflict and insecurity for decades. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced. They lack life's basics shelter, medicines, clean water and sanitation. How do you combat a deadly disease in such conditions? Especially when this strain of Ebola, known as Bundibuggio, has so far no vaccine and no treatment. We're going to discuss all of that today with a nurse who works for Médecins Sans Frontières or Doctors Without Borders, who joined us from Bunya in DRC at the heart of the Ebola outbreak.

Trish Newport’s Road To MSF

SPEAKER_05 3:28

My name is Trish Newport. I'm Canadian. I'm from the Yukon, which is right next to Alaska. But currently I live in Geneva because I am the responsible for emergency response for MSF Switzerland. So I'm based in Geneva, but I travel all over the world to organize and coordinate large-scale emergency response.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Right now you're actually in the Democratic Republic of Congo working on Ebola. Did you always plan on a job that would take you to such places? I mean, how did you get into it?

SPEAKER_05 4:01

I did, but I never planned to the scale that it would be. I always wanted to work for MSF. My grandma was a humanitarian. She had worked in Milanoe. And I remember when I was about 10 years old, she said to me, When you grow up and you become a humanitarian, you should work for Medicine Some Frontier because they really have strong values and ethics that you will appreciate. And so I just took this with without any thought. It was just became my truth. I will work for MSF. And so I did many other things because I didn't feel responsible or mature enough to have an adult job. And then when I finally decided to become a nurse, I actually called MSF and I said, I got accepted into nursing school. What do I need to do to be able to work for you? And they gave me a list, which included working for two years and covering all these things. And two more years to the day of graduating, I applied to work for them.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

You you phoned up MSF, they told you what you want to do, then you get or got accepted. So I mean, nursing for médecins sans frontières is not your average Western hospital nursing or a clinic. Where has this job taken you? What have you been confronted with?

SPEAKER_05 5:12

This job has taken me everywhere. I'm I'm so lucky to have had the experiences that I worked. Um my first experience with MSF was in Djibouti. I was offered a position in Djibouti. In Canada, we never learn about Djibouti. I actually had to look up Djibouti to see that it was a country, and I went to Djibouti Djibouti, which is the capital of Djibouti. Um and then from there I worked all throughout the Sahel. I worked a lot in acute malnutrition response for a number of years. So I worked in the world. It's hard to see, but you can really do well, you can really do something in the sense a little malnourished child comes, if they get plumpinut and proper care for six weeks, they become a fat little cute kid and and they go home. What's challenging is that MSF saves lives for today for the changes that will come tomorrow. And so we're not changing the context that these children are living in, and so they became malnourished for a reason. And so often we would see children recovered from malnutrition and then two months later they come back malnourished all over again. And this was this was a hard thing to accept that we can't do everything. We need to have other organizations and and governments doing things, but at least we can be saving lives for

The Six Pillars Of Ebola Control

SPEAKER_05 6:26

today.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Well, right now, you're in Democratic Republic of Congo. You're there where this new Ebola outbreak is taking place. What motivated you? Right. I've heard about this, I'm going there.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

So I first did an Ebola response in 2018, and I became fascinated by this disease. It is it's horrible. It's horrible to families, it destroys families, but it's also very methodological. There's six pillars to outbreak response. If you have all pillars in place at the same time, you can stop an outbreak. Um, and you can't just have one thing, you can't just have an isolation, you can't just have case management, you need to have every single pillar, and this I find fascinating. And so I became very involved in Ebola outbreak, and almost every single Ebola outbreak, I will be involved in it. So I'm happy to be here. I have worked in the DRC for many, many years. There are we have amazing staff here. I feel like I come home and I see the family. Um, I went to Mongwalu, which is our big Ebola response, it's one of the epicenters of the Ebola outbreak. And I got there and I just saw the family of Congolese staff who respond to every single Ebola outbreak. Um, and this we were joyed to be together and that we all know our work together. Um, and so while it's it's a really horrible situation, it's a disaster. We have an amazing team to work together, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

A lot of people will find your enthusiasm um it's almost enthusiasm more than a sense of of duty, which we imagine sometimes from aid workers. And many other people, you know, hearing the word Ebola would run in the opposite direction, but you not. I mean, I'm even wondering what your family and friends think about you doing this.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

So I I mean, it's very genuine. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now. And I feel and I think a lot of people here feel we have the skills. We have the skills to help this. And so it it's a duty, but also a desire. If I'm able to help, and I'm able to help save lives, and I'm able to help find strategies and ways to stop this outbreak, why wouldn't I want to be involved? My family, they're used to it.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Okay. They don't try and persuade you not to go.

SPEAKER_05 8:54

No, you know, I lived in a canvas tent in in the remote wild of the Yukon for ten years. They they know that there's no hope.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

So you like challenging physical environments then? I love it. Yeah, you thrive on them. Okay, well, on that that point then, what isn't a day like for you right now in in DRC?

Coordinating Care Amid Conflict

SPEAKER_05 9:16

I'm really the manager and the coordinator of MSF Switzerland's response here in Etori. So I work a lot, I talk with all of our different projects, but I also work a lot in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and with other organizations all about how to collaborate and organize this response. I unfortunately am in a lot of meetings. Um, but I also, in the end, we're responsible for the security management of our teams. And this is it's not just an Ebola outbreak. It's an Ebola outbreak in a context with massive, massive humanitarian needs. What that has high insecurity, there's ongoing conflict, and so there's also it's not just about talking about Ebola, it's also about networking with different actors that can share information about the context and the security and to figure out how we can also respond to the humanitarian needs in the area. We can't ignore them. Before the Ebola outbreak started, we had five big humanitarian responses in Itori province. And so those, most of them have continued on, and so now there's Ebola creeping into these projects, into big displacement camps that have horrible sanitation, and so spend a lot of time, one, really advocating for other actors to respond, not just to Ebola, but also to the humanitarian response. So I do a lot of discussions, a lot of advocacy, um, but I also visit the projects, which sounds easier than said because you can take six hours on the very bad roads um getting to where you need to be. But I can't support the projects or advocate for what is needed if I don't actually see what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

And what are you seeing? I mean, we heard the WHO just a couple of days ago saying that this outbreak is the fastest spreading ever.

SPEAKER_05 11:07

We see that. We see in a lot of Ebola outbreaks, you have a little hot spot and you can manage and it stays small, and then you see another hotspot and you can move there, but you have time, right? You f you follow the epidemiology. Um, here it just started, it was so big already. By the time um the outbreak was declared, there were over 300 suspect cases, over 55 deaths. So it was massive. And so we've never ever caught up to it. When I say we, it's not just MSF, it's the entire response, it's the Ministry of Health. It's the 17th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Ministry of Health knows how to respond. It's it's just the sheer amplitude of this, right? Right now there are areas that have Ebola cases and no one is responding to it. And this is scary because if this is happening, it means people that are responding, local Ministry of Health staff, don't have the training. If you respond to Ebola without proper training, without the knowledge and experience, you're really exposed, and there's a high risk people will get infected and then the the outbreak will just continue. We see the outbreak is starting to go into areas with high, high insecurity, where we hear about community deaths, but you don't have access to them to be actually sampling to see if it's Ebola or not, or to have um or to have a proper Ebola response. I just went to visit one of our projects in Fitaki. There was a population of about a hundred thousand people that were forced to flee because of fighting. There ain't a hundred thousand people in a displacement camp on a hill, it's very crowded, very poor sanitation, there's not enough latrines for everyone, there's not enough water, and Ebola cases have started there. And so we already have activities in the camp, we provide water, we provide health care in the in the camp, but how to possibly I mean respond to Ebola and the humanitarian response. I mean, there weren't enough humanitarian responders there in the first place. Um, it's extremely challenging.

Building Trust With Local Communities

SPEAKER_03 13:12

How is MSF, do you feel you have trust from from the local communities? Because we know that in previous outbreaks this has been a real problem, suspicion and mistrust.

SPEAKER_05 13:23

Yes, so it's not an easy answer. MSF has been present in Ituri Province since 2005. We have covered almost every area, right, for emergency response. Um, so the population in general knows us. In Mongwalu, we had never ever been to Mongalu. Humanitarian actors hadn't been to Mongalu in general. It's a real mining area. It's a town of about 150,000. And so it was a big work for our teams to really engage with the community. It was in the news. The first day our teams arrived, they put up a tent, it was empty, they went to bed, it got burned down. It was maybe one of the best things that could have happened. Because it said, okay, we need to pause, we need to look at all the lessons learned from the 2018-2020 outbreak where there was a lot of violence towards the Ebola response, and we need to like take a moment, engage with the community, see how they're feeling, and ask them what their priorities are. Because in the 2018-2020 outbreak that was in Itori and North Kivu, there was a lot of violence, and at one some point I asked one of our staff why there was so much violence towards the Ebola response, and he said to me, Ebola is your priority. It's not our priority. We don't have access to running water, we don't have access to clean water. I've had children die of malaria because they don't have access to treatment, and then you guys come in with all of your money because you care about Ebola, but you don't care about us having water or access to basic medication. And this changed the way that I see Ebola response. And in that outbreak, we started, we stopped responding to Ebola, and we would go into communities and we would say, What is your priority? So in Mongolou, after the tent was burned, I'm so proud of our teams, they went to the community and they said, What is your priority? And they said, We need this outbreak to stop. We have so many people dying in this community. We need pe we need safe and dignified burials, we need isolation. And our team said, Great, how do we do this together, right? Because even if they want it, there's still going to be problems. And so they actually made a group of the leaders in the community who commit to responding to the problems. So if there are any, if we have any like harassment, our team calls this group of community leaders who will come and deal with the problem. And so this is something you have to continue to renew. You have to continue to engage. It's not like you can say, check community engagement, now we get to move on. Um, but it it's a huge, it's a huge amount of work.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

So it's a constant working together and establishing and re-establishing trust.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

Totally. And having them engaged in the response. We can't just say this is how it needs to be done, but to say, how can we do this in your community? Like these are the principles of Ebola response. How do you see this working in community and how can we make this happen together? It can't be the same way that we do it in every single community. Every community is different.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Do you think aid agencies have in the past I mean, I know this is a bit of an old chestnut and it gets talked about a lot, but do you think you are maybe still suffering from this maybe 10, 20, 30 years ago, aid agencies go and say, this is how we do it, and don't look at the community or the local culture at all?

SPEAKER_05 16:37

I feel like this still happens all of the time. I mean, there are organizations that definitely focus on community engagement, but there are so many that don't, right? And it's also about don't donor structures and the way that donors give money, because they say we will give money for exactly this, and then an organization needs to come and do exactly this. Um and so if the community says, no, no, we want it this way, or this is our priority, a lot of organizations don't have the don't have the donor structure to be able to do that.

Funding Gaps And Too Few Responders

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Let's let's actually, since you've mentioned it, let's talk about finances because um this is, and you know because you you when you're not in the field, you're in Geneva, you know the absolute shock of all of this the cuts in funding. MSF is maybe a little bit shielded. You're you don't get money from states mostly, you get it's private, but are you seeing the funding cuts in this outbreak?

SPEAKER_05 17:33

So that's a hard one to answer. I'll answer it in two different ways. The first way is that in the last year and a half, we've seen a lot of actors leave eTory. We have seen funding cuts, and so regular humanitarian activities were cut and organis organizations left.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Which left I mean, that would also hinder just the general sense of well-being well-being of communities and also surveillance, I would guess.

SPEAKER_05 18:01

All of this, right? And so it impacts surveillance, it impacts the well-being of the population, and there's sentiment about the objectives and motivations of humanitarian organizations. Because then it leaves a bigger humanitarian situation to respond to, which makes it harder to respond to Ebola. And now all these organizations are coming back with money just for Ebola. And it reminds me of the situation we faced in 2018-2020. And so this first I think is a real challenge. And then the second part is it's hard to say if the funding cuts have impacted this, but the response is not big enough. This we see. I mean, it is a massive Ebola outbreak. In Bunya, which is where I am right now, there's a big response for Ebola. It's still not big enough. Um, there's not enough beds for patients, and not every single pillar is functioning and working today. You step outside of Bunya, there's very little, right? We're in Mongolu, and usually in an Ebola outbreak, we might be doing case management and some part of outreach. In mongulu, because there's other actors doing things now, we're doing in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, we're doing almost every single pillar. And this just is is there's not enough actors, there's not enough actors anywhere. There's not enough funding, there's not enough international support. Um, is it related to funding cuts? This I can't say. That's out of my like knowledge and and scope, but I can see on the ground, we see that it's not big enough.

Surveillance, Contact Tracing, Global Stakes

SPEAKER_03 19:34

So, where do you think this outbreak is is going? I mean, is it out of control at the moment?

SPEAKER_05 19:39

It is a very, very concerning situation. Um, and as long as there's not adequate surveillance, it will move. I mean, the good thing about Ebola is that it doesn't have pandemic potential. That's because you can't be infectious unless you're symptomatic. And it's not respiratory transmission. And because of these two things, it doesn't have pandemic potential. But does it ha does it have potential to move? Oh yes. If you don't have proper surveillance in place. Usually in an Ebola outbreak, for every new case, you identify everyone that was in close contact with that new confirmed case, and then you follow all of those people for 21 days. Following them means they need to take their temperature twice a day, and as soon as they have fever or any sign of illness, they need to be isolated so that they're not going to infect anyone else and get tested. But today, that contact tracing, the follow-up, it's not being done everywhere. And so we don't know who's at risk of having Ebola. And and so we really have no global overview of the situation today, and that is frightening.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

And what do you say to people in countries, well, like Canada or maybe here in Europe? Ah, it's Ebola's not really our problem. We need our money for us here at home.

SPEAKER_05 20:52

This is, I mean, I I can see where people come from in the sense that everyone lives their own reality, right? Um, but there is a real global risk if we're not putting resources into responding to neglected illnesses or illnesses that don't come about very well very often. Boonjibugio virus, which is causing this outbreak, it's the third time there's been a known boonjeboogio outbreak in history. And there has been discussion before there needs to be more research and development about these Ebola viruses. It hasn't happened, right? Money goes to other places. Um, we think of COVID, I mean, viruses appear, and the more research and development that is done, we learn lessons. There's transversal knowledge that happens. Um, and so I think being able to have answers like treatments, increased diagnostic capacity for any illness helps the entire world. And people here, they're people, they're humans. You know, it's it breaks my heart. There are families that have had 15 people die in their family. There was this horrible story in Fitaki. This week. Week where a mother had her child, the child was sick, and then the mother died of Ebola. The the grandmother took the baby, came to where our project is, the grandmother died, the baby is now sick with Ebola. None of the family wants to come to the child because everyone that touches the child dies. It just breaks your heart. I mean, and the there are these stories over and over again of people who have dealt with so much trauma. And we're all humans. Um, and so I have a hard time understanding why we can't connect that way.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

I know it's hard to look ahead in a situation like this, but there is a lot of attention on this outbreak now. Where do you think you're gonna be in a couple of months? Where do you think this outbreak's gonna be in a couple of months?

SPEAKER_05 22:46

I hope. Well say what I uh what I see and what I hope. I hope that there will be more actors here and it will start to be better managed. Um, and and that we can start to take a grasp of it, catch up to it, and actually start to control it. Um, but this doesn't happen if we don't have resources in place, if there's not more international support to be able to um respond to this outbreak. One of our staff, we were sitting around the other night, and I said, What is going to happen here? And one of our Congolese staff said to me, Trish, everything has an end. It's going to end at some point. It's just a question about how long it takes and how many resources are put into place to actually stop it. And how many people die. And how many people die, and how many families are really destroyed by the virus.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

And

Closing And What’s Next

SPEAKER_03 23:42

that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. Huge thanks to Trish Newport and MSF Switzerland for making the time for this interview in the midst of such demanding work and difficult conditions. We wish Trish and all her colleagues all the very best. Next time we'll be profiling an aid worker currently tasked with keeping the Geneva Conventions relevant in 21st century warfare. And in a way, also profiling one of the most recognizable, iconic symbols in the world, the Red Cross emblem itself.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

The emblem it's it's a symbol of hope. It's a symbol of, okay, there is a human in the midst of war, of awful situation. There are people who are looking at this emblem because they know maybe their family will be found, or maybe they will get medical treatment.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Does the emblem need to go digital to protect vital infrastructure from cyberattacks?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

The fact that cyber attacks are more and more done by machine, we are talking about a machine talking to another machine. The computers themselves, we know that this is a sign, and maybe one day these attacks will be avoided because the system, the standard, will be saying this is a protected server, this is a protected data.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

That episode's out on August 4th, and later in our summer profiles, we'll be talking to UN women about the consequences of cuts in aid funding on women and girls, and we'll hear from a pair of human rights defenders how to keep support for human rights alive when some of the most powerful nations on earth are pushing back. All that and more this summer on Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen folks. Thanks for listening. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can email us on inside Geneva at SwissInfo.ch and subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen folks, thanks again for listening.