Afghanistan’s statistics for child and maternal mortality are amongst the highest in the world. More than 50 women die each day in childbirth and 1 in 4 babies will never reach their 5th birthday.
In my practice as an Obstetrician in Afghanistan I became aware of the lives behind these statistics. Many of those women who die during childbirth are, in fact, teenagers. The youngest I saw was just 13. Over 70% of these deaths are preventable by simple emergency Obstetric procedures.
When I travel across Afghanistan, I can understand why the statistics are so bad. Afghanistan suffered so many years of war that many medical staff were either killed in the fighting or fled overseas. Few have returned. Medical training during those years was scarce at best. Universities and hospitals were destroyed, girls were denied an education, boys had to fight a war.
Add to this the inaccessibility of clinics and hospitals to the majority of the population and the reluctance of the male Afghan to allow his wife to be seen by a male doctor and you have the recipe for these appalling statistics.
I travelled to a clinic in Badakshan –which is one of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Afghanistan. It took us hours of off-road driving to reach Naland Clinic. This clinic serves a population of thousands who live up to 10 hours walk away. Thousands die in the winter when travel becomes impossible.
The majority of children die from preventable causes too -  many as a direct result of lack of a clean and safe water supply. If childhood immunizations, safe water and good access to health care could be provided, we could save millions of lives and change those statistics for good.

Afghan Connection has chosen health projects which are small and direct but which have a large ripple effect on the population - namely the refurbishment and equipping of hospitals and clinics; medical training; and vaccine refrigerators for a massive immunisation programme in the North.

Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital

Before

After

I visited this hospital in 2002 and was appalled by what I found. It is in the capital and yet it was receiving no aid. Thousands of children were dying unnecessarily. There was no constant power supply and the generators were often out of fuel. The place was filthy and understaffed.

AC provided refurbishment of the Neonatal Unit, Intensive Care Unit, Surgical and ENT units. We also provided equipment to these wards, which lacked even basic equipment.

Medical Training

In 2003 we received the Sunday Times Christmas Appeal and it raised £120,000 for our medical projects. We used some of this to fund expatriate Paediatrician and Obstetrician salaries and the rest to fund equipment.
Dr Paul Sender, a Paediatrician, spent 2 years working for AC Providing 6 months of training at the Indira Gandhi and 18 months at the Kunduz Hospital in Northern Afghanistan.

AC provided equipment at this hospital and also a medical library, donated from funds collected by Dr. Fane’s family friends, who wanted the library to be a memorial to her father, who was a doctor and who died during the Christmas Appeal 2003.

Dr Ameetah Shah was employed to provide 18 months Obstetric training in Kunduz, Wardak and Kabul. During this time she visited medical staff in District Hopsitals and also in outlying clinics, where she advised on equipment and protocol needs as well as medical training for doctors, nurses and midwives.

Vaccination Refrigerators

In November 2007, AC was asked by Merlin, an NGO running health projects in Northern Afghanistan, to fund 16 vaccine refrigerators. Merlin is attempting an ambitious campaign to immunise 72,000 a year and these refrigerators arrived in March 08 –after a troubled journey, held up by snows and customs-in clinics across the North.