Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

Médecins Sans Frontières and GOAL have been quite explicit about requesting human resources and additional funding for this crisis. We are also actively lobbying at EU level - perhaps Ireland can contribute to this as well - for the organisation of a central medical evacuation system. At the moment there is no co-ordinated system for medically evacuating any international staff on the ground. This situation has an impact not only on Médecins Sans Frontières but on all the international agencies working in the affected countries. We do not have a co-ordinated response, which often leads to delays, particularly in the case of one international staff member who had to be medically evacuated from MSF. We also seek an EU-level response that could be effective immediately for medical evacuation of international NGO staff from affected areas if needed.