Nina, a doctor from the UK, is in Bangladesh, caring for people who have fled violence in neighboring Myanmar. As she approaches the end of her posting with Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Nina writes about some of her young patients, and the desire they feel to go home...

We recently admitted an 11-year-old girl to the clinic with a suspected neurological condition. She developed signs of extreme weakness, and eventually she was unable to walk. After weeks of physiotherapy she made some progress. She went from not being able to move her legs at all, to standing up, albeit with a significant amount of assistance.

Every day, she asked where her latrine chair was so she could go home. Thankfully, our clinic logistician came to the rescue with a specially made version out of one of the plastic office chairs. When we delivered the chair, she became our jolliest patient, because she was finally able to go ‘home’; back to the shelter she had lived in for less than a month. She even invited me to go around for a visit!

This week, we also discharged one of our longest staying patients. She is paralyzed from the waist down, and was unable to leave as she needed regular wound care. Now, she had improved so much that she didn’t need frequent dressings and her family felt that occasional trips to the clinic was achievable.

These patients are a reminder of how important it is to have a space you can call home. I really hope the situation for our patients improve so they have a better place to go home to.

Read the full article about the Rohingya refugees by Nina Goldman at Doctors Without Borders.