Medical Emergency Relief International

MERLIN was founded in 1993 by Christopher Besse, Nicholas Mellor, and Mark Dalton[1] as a British charity dedicated to supporting and developing health services, particularly in crisis zones and following natural disasters.

[6] Merlin grew as a specialist charity aimed at responding to natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies, with the additional task of staying on to rebuild the capacity of local health services.

[8] It responded to some of the most serious humanitarian emergencies in recent history, including the 2004 Indian ocean Tsunami, the War in Darfur, and Cyclone Nargis in Burma.

MERLIN worked in Kenya beginning in 1998, running voluntary HIV testing and counseling clinics in Turkana for nomadic pastoralists, and a similar project which supports patients receiving anti-retroviral treatment in the Great Rift Valley.

Sudan: In 2004, when MERLIN's teams began establishing health services, most people displaced by the Darfur conflict had no access to medical care.

MERLIN began working in Afghanistan in 1994, providing essential health services to vulnerable populations in some of the most remote and hard-to-reach areas of the country.

At one point, only 14% of deliveries were attended by a trained midwife, and in isolated rural areas, women faced a one-in-three lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth.

MERLIN responded within 72 hours of the disaster, sending in a team to carry out health assessments and to distribute emergency medical supplies, hygiene packs, and essential water and sanitation items.

MERLIN increased community access to primary and specialist medical services through mobile and fixed clinics and improved the availability of safe blood supplies.

MERLIN launched an emergency response within 48 hours of the earthquake and mobilized a specialized surgical and medical team to Delmas 33, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

MERLIN's teams of doctors and nurses offered basic, maternal and neo-natal health care, while referring more severe cases to local hospitals for secondary treatment as needed.

Since MERLIN teams were already working in Burma before the cyclone, they were among the first to deliver a response to the disaster, setting up first aid points in Laputta and treating at least 250 patients a day in the first week.

By the end of 2007 MERLIN had helped an estimated 287,000 households in Ampara and Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, by constructing and rehabilitating clinics and hospitals damaged by conflict and the tsunami.