HIGHLIGHTS
• Hospitals in Uruzgan face severe access constraints and a shortage of medicines halting health care delivery services
• EMERGENCY and MRCA health teams brave volatile and dangerous conditions to deliver medical care
• Deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on health workers and facilities hinder medical services, ACBAR reports
• Save the Children scale up health in emergencies to reach more children across Afghanistan
• Successful “Twinning Programme” builds partnerships to better deliver in the field
HEALTH CARE IN EMERGENCIES
Access: medical services severely curtailed in Uruzgan
Forced to flee their homes and fearing for their lives, nearly 900 people are displaced every day in Afghanistan amounting to more than 134,000 displaced so far in 2016.
Uruzgan shows a clear example of how the people of Afghanistan are facing a humanitarian crisis primarily with regard to access constraints to health care and medical services.
Insecurity and conflict is taking a toll on health care services Families are living in precarious conditions, remaining cut off from health care and regular supplies of medicine for months due to the main road closure from Kandahar to Tirinkot and Dehrawud in Uruzgan province. “I have moved my house three times during the last three months and now military operations are going to start again. We are exhausted and cannot run anymore,” said Mr. Abdul Hai, a resident of Dehrawud district.
Only one of the four clinics in Dehrawud is fully functioning, providing health care to 33,000 people out of a population of 60,000. Two are facing severe medicine shortages and one is closed. These two Afghanistan Health Development Services (AHDS) clinics with a shortage of medicines still serve an average of 27,000 people despite a scarcity of resources.
Four districts in Uruzgan have AHDS first aid trauma points, one in each district to supplement the AHDS clinics. Some families are unable to transfer their relatives to the hospital and humanitarian agencies have had to halt activities to support evacuation of patients.
“Due to the ongoing conflict and the resulting road closure, many patients are unable to visit the clinic and medicine cannot be delivered to the health facilities,” said an AHDS Clinic Director. “Residents were given five days to complete their wheat harvest – so an agreed cease fire was established - and as a result patient load decreased dramatically from ten to 20 trauma patients a day to two or three a day.” This health facility services hospital is in Kandahar, 500 kilometres away.
WFP, AHDS and ZOA have had to stop operations in some areas as a result of inaccessibility and the Afghanistan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) is also unable to deliver assistance in certain locations.
“The security situation is changing every day. If the situation improves, we hope to reopen the closed clinic,” said Doctor Faisal Rahman, AHDS Uruzgan provincial project manager. “Some of the main roads are blocked, but we have been able to get a supply of medicines by helicopter to support families with injuries and other health care needs.”
At the end of May 2016 a joint assessment conducted in Tirinkot identified 1,988 individuals in need of humanitarian assistance. ANDMA distributed food and household items to 1113 individuals, however much more is needed. As a result of the main road closure between Kandahar and Tirinkot, no prepositioned relief supplies are available throughout the province.
“Our priority as a humanitarian community is to reach the most vulnerable people in need and in order to do that we need the two main roads from Tirinkot and Dehrawud to Kandahar to be re-opened,” said Ahmad Wali Raisi, OCHA Humanitarian Affairs Officer based in Kandahar.