Press Services : True Entertainment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 2, 2003
AP Newswire

Doctors Without Borders

WASHINGTON, June 5 /U.S. Newswire -- On Wednesday, July 2 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, the National Geographic Channel (NGC) will premiere Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field, a gripping new series about doctors, nurses, and a dedicated support team on the international front lines of emergency medicine presented by Kiefer Sutherland, star of the Fox Television Network drama, 24.
In each episode of Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field, Sutherland introduces and narrates the heroic, heartbreaking and inspiring stories of medical teams delivering emergency medical aid to victims of armed conflict, natural disasters, and epidemics as well as social and geographic isolation. NGC cameras gained unprecedented access to Doctors Without Borders (also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) traveling from South America to Africa and Asia. The series covers the dramas faced head-on by members of this international non-profit humanitarian organization, which was honored for its work with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field chronicles the struggles and the triumphs of MSF staff who have traded sometimes high-paying careers and the amenities of modern life for battlefield conditions in some of the world's most dangerous locations. MSF teams travel to remote areas, managing in rough, chaotic conditions with barely any resources, frequently dealing with people who have never received this kind of healthcare. The drama is very real and the consequences irreversible.
Each episode introduces us to extraordinary people who are fighting for their lives and fighting to save lives. MSF staff from the United States, Holland, Colombia, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, South Africa, the Philippines, England, Spain and around the world, daily perform heroic acts though they shun the label of hero. The premiere episode features three MSF workers. Els Adams, a Dutch nurse and MSF veteran, and Jackie Mukoyogo, a British doctor and MSF newcomer, deal with a starvation crisis in Angola. Meanwhile, on the Ichilo river in Bolivia, Colombian doctor Oscar Bernal finds an 18-year-old woman, pregnant and in her fourth day of labor, facing potentially life-threatening complications.
Adams and Mukoyogo are center stage in riveting life and death dramas. In a remote encampment, Adams must choose a few dozen of the most critically ill out of some 1,800 severely malnourished and ailing people to be sent to a feeding station. She is anguished, knowing that she must say ``yes'' to some and ``no'' to most. She feels like she's ``playing God,'' but she must rise above a sense of futility to help save lives. At the feeding station, Mukoyogo must deal with wave upon wave of new arrivals to an under-equipped, overcrowded facility. The sense of urgency as Adams and Mukoyogo perform their work is unrelenting...will the individuals they're trying to save make it through another day? Oscar Bernal cruises in a boat to remote riverside towns in Bolivia to provide basic healthcare. The pregnant woman he finds along the way has been in labor for four days and must to get to a hospital immediately. But the pace of the boat, when the motor works at all, is agonizingly slow, and complications threaten the life of the mother and her unborn child. A faster boat is needed ... but how can Bernal find one in such a remote area? In other episodes, Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field covers a tuberculosis epidemic in Uzbekistan, a maternity ward in Sierra Leone short on electricity and running water, and a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan damaged during the campaign against the Taliban in 2001.
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was founded in 1971 by a small group of French doctors who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders. Each year, more than 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses, other medical professionals, logistics experts, water/sanitation engineers, and administrators from around the world join 15,000 locally-hired staff to provide medical aid in more than 80 countries.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 2, 2003

AP Newswire

Doctors Without Borders

WASHINGTON, June 5 /U.S. Newswire -- On Wednesday, July 2 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, the National Geographic Channel (NGC) will premiere Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field, a gripping new series about doctors, nurses, and a dedicated support team on the international front lines of emergency medicine presented by Kiefer Sutherland, star of the Fox Television Network drama, 24.

In each episode of Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field, Sutherland introduces and narrates the heroic, heartbreaking and inspiring stories of medical teams delivering emergency medical aid to victims of armed conflict, natural disasters, and epidemics as well as social and geographic isolation. NGC cameras gained unprecedented access to Doctors Without Borders (also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) traveling from South America to Africa and Asia. The series covers the dramas faced head-on by members of this international non-profit humanitarian organization, which was honored for its work with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field chronicles the struggles and the triumphs of MSF staff who have traded sometimes high-paying careers and the amenities of modern life for battlefield conditions in some of the world's most dangerous locations. MSF teams travel to remote areas, managing in rough, chaotic conditions with barely any resources, frequently dealing with people who have never received this kind of healthcare. The drama is very real and the consequences irreversible.

Each episode introduces us to extraordinary people who are fighting for their lives and fighting to save lives. MSF staff from the United States, Holland, Colombia, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, South Africa, the Philippines, England, Spain and around the world, daily perform heroic acts though they shun the label of hero. The premiere episode features three MSF workers. Els Adams, a Dutch nurse and MSF veteran, and Jackie Mukoyogo, a British doctor and MSF newcomer, deal with a starvation crisis in Angola. Meanwhile, on the Ichilo river in Bolivia, Colombian doctor Oscar Bernal finds an 18-year-old woman, pregnant and in her fourth day of labor, facing potentially life-threatening complications.

Adams and Mukoyogo are center stage in riveting life and death dramas. In a remote encampment, Adams must choose a few dozen of the most critically ill out of some 1,800 severely malnourished and ailing people to be sent to a feeding station. She is anguished, knowing that she must say ``yes'' to some and ``no'' to most. She feels like she's ``playing God,'' but she must rise above a sense of futility to help save lives. At the feeding station, Mukoyogo must deal with wave upon wave of new arrivals to an under-equipped, overcrowded facility. The sense of urgency as Adams and Mukoyogo perform their work is unrelenting...will the individuals they're trying to save make it through another day? Oscar Bernal cruises in a boat to remote riverside towns in Bolivia to provide basic healthcare. The pregnant woman he finds along the way has been in labor for four days and must to get to a hospital immediately. But the pace of the boat, when the motor works at all, is agonizingly slow, and complications threaten the life of the mother and her unborn child. A faster boat is needed ... but how can Bernal find one in such a remote area? In other episodes, Doctors Without Borders: Life in the Field covers a tuberculosis epidemic in Uzbekistan, a maternity ward in Sierra Leone short on electricity and running water, and a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan damaged during the campaign against the Taliban in 2001.

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was founded in 1971 by a small group of French doctors who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders. Each year, more than 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses, other medical professionals, logistics experts, water/sanitation engineers, and administrators from around the world join 15,000 locally-hired staff to provide medical aid in more than 80 countries.

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