Éric Cheysson is a vascular surgeon and president of the Chaîne de l’Espoir, an independent humanitarian association of general interest, present in 28 countries, which aims to strengthen existing health systems to give everyone, and in particular children , the same chances of survival and development.
He is also one of the founders of Doctors of the World. He contributed to the realization of the Cardiovascular Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the Heart Institute in Maputo, Mozambique, but one of the actions that was closest to his heart was the complete renovation of a mother and child hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.
franceinfo: You opened the Kabul hospital in 2005 and subsequently a children’s home. We know the current situation in Afghanistan. Where are the “doctors” who work there today?
Eric Cheysson: The situation is extremely difficult. The hospital continues to operate and we still have 900 employees. 85 health personnel have left, mainly doctors. What touches me deeply is that we had trained two cardiac surgeons and they left for the United States. It is a considerable loss. It takes fifteen years to train a surgeon and this brain drain will also have dramatic consequences.
What are the solutions then?
If we parody, I would say that to leave is to give up, to stay is to collaborate. But I think there is a happy medium. It is not possible to abandon Afghanistan at present. Why ? Because the World Food Program (WFP) describes what is happening in Afghanistan as the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth. You have to stay, but I think there is a conditionality. And this conditionality is access for all, work for women caregivers, but also accessibility for women who are, I would say, excuse me for the term, the big losers and the target of this accumulation of current woes in Afghanistan.
You obtained your surgeon’s degree in 1981, after which you embarked on vascular and thoracic surgery at the University of Laval, in Quebec. For four years, you have been the head of the vascular and thoracic surgery department at the René Dubos Hospital Center in Pontoise, in Val-d’Oise. You have never given up on humanitarian work, it has always been part of your life at the same time. What does this fight for humanitarian aid, to help others, to help children, mean to you?
I think it’s a fundamental fight. I would say: in France, I treat, over there, I save.
It started in 1979, you joined the committee A boat for Vietnam. The boat was the Island of Light and indeed, you went there to care for and rescue those whom the population called the Vietnamese boat-people, in the company of Bernard Kouchner. Then there was this Doctors of the World foundation and today you are president of the Chaîne de l’Espoir. How can we help you?
In 2005, when we took over the Kabul hospital, Afghanistan was very popular, it was liberation, hope and the departure of the Taliban. We are back to square one, but perhaps for worse.
Eric Cheyssonat franceinfo
We can be helped in many ways. First, if doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, resuscitators listen, if they contact us, we need them in the 28 countries where we are. Then, of course, the money. They say that health is priceless, but it does have a cost. Every child we operate in Kabul, you have to pay for consumables, you have to pay salaries, you have to pay for all that. I remind you that this hospital was built on the generosity of the French and at the time, there was Muriel Robin, Marine Jacquemin who helped us.
You were, moreover, one of the first humanitarian doctors to come to the aid and save the mujahideen. Where does this desire to become a surgeon and help others come from? When does it change?
Quite frankly, I wanted to be a doctor, a country doctor. I initially found the surgeons to be very brutal. I wrote a book called The arrogance of the scalpel and why ? Because I think that to choose this job, there is a little break or break at the start, you can’t say at 17, what am I going to do? I’m going to split my neighbour’s mattress to go and extirpate a tumor, stop a hemorrhage. I think there is a bit of a field of psychiatry.
You who are both in the field, but also on the battlefield on a daily basis. How do you define yourself?
I always believe that there is a parcel that will take us to the best, to the beautiful, to the outstretched hand.
Eric Cheyssonat franceinfo
I would define myself as someone who still believes a lot in human nature. I can’t believe that a situation is totally hopeless. I always have faith in dialogue and in action and especially when we go to treat the other, I think we can find each other. I think that medicine, surgery is a place of dialogue that can bring us together.