All incidents described in this book are true. The names of patients have been changed to protect their confidentiality, but many of the names of staff have been left unaltered. Like Toyota, for example. I couldn’t have come up with a name like that—not for a person.
This book was written in the months after the events took place, and as such all dialogue has been recreated to the best of my memory. Any errors or misquotations that could be attributed to characters in this book are purely mine, and mine alone. I bear full responsibility for any and all inaccuracies. While editorial constraints have meant that some minor scenes have been compressed, or combined, this was never done to alter the integrity of the account as a whole.
At the time of writing, I had no association with Médecins Sans Frontières, and it had no editorial input. My respect for the organisation remains high, but I hope this book will be seen neither as a specific endorsement of any one organisation, nor as a rebuke, but rather as what it was intended to be—a story about people, and of the difficult conditions they happen to live in.