In one of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, where there is a chronic shortage of trained health workers, the medical staff at Boost Hospital provide a vital lifeline just kilometres away from intense daily battles between the Taliban and Afghan security forces.
These medics are risking their lives to provide life-saving treatment to Afghanistan’s youngest and most vulnerable.
The Medecins Sans Frontiers trauma centre in the southern Afghan city of Lashkar Gah is one of only three referral hospitals in the country’s south, and serves approximately one million people stranded in the war zone. Here, under-resourced health workers treat malnourished babies, landmine victims and car crash injuries against a backdrop of gunfire and shelling.
Despite the United States spending more than $100billion in non-military assistance since 2002, access to medical care in Afghanistan is dismal. There are only two doctors and five nursing and midwifery personnel for every 10,000, making preventable problems like maternal and infant mortality among the highest in the world. On the paediatric ward they expect 20-30% of the babies admitted will die.
Award-winning 101 East reporter Karishma Vyas explains: “Patients travel for days to reach it, risking landmines, Taliban check-posts and even gun battles to see doctors. And MSF has a policy of treating everyone, including soldiers and fighters, as long as they leave their weapons at the gate.”
Vyas obtained exclusive access to Boost Hospital months after a US military attack obliterated another MSF facility in Kunduz, killing more than 40 people. An investigation found 16 servicemen culpable and they were given a variety of administrative punishments, yet no one has been, or will be, charged with a crime.
“We think that the punishments are proportional to the facts in the case,” said a spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland. “I would love to tell you that it would never happen again,” said Cleveland. “But I’d be lying to you and I’d be lying to myself. Simply stated, civilian casualties are sadly part of the fabric of this violence and of this conflict.”
Frontline medics have traditionally been off-limits, according to the conventions of war and international humanitarian laws. But according to the International Committee for the Red Cross there have been at least 2400 strikes against hospitals, health workers and patients in the past three years.
Afghanistan: Medics Under Fire screens on Al Jazeera English this Thursday, 14 July 2016 at 2230 GMT on 101 East, Al Jazeera’s award-winning weekly current affairs programme focusing on a diverse range of stories across Asia and the Pacific.
For more information, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/ or follow 101 East on Twitter on @AJ101East and Facebook at 101East – Al Jazeera.
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