Status: Completed response
Afghanistan
Afghanistan is experiencing an extensive and complex humanitarian crisis characterized by violent conflict, large-scale displacement, a pandemic, and a major drought.
At the start of 2021, there were 18.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance — the 4th largest humanitarian caseload globally. Initial figures indicate that this number will go up to 22 million in 2022.
With our long-time partners IOM (International Organization for Migration, a UN Agency), we’ve delivered two sets of training in Kabul – Afghanistan’s capital and largest city – for health workers across the country: COVID-19 and emergency, trauma and critical management of patients in casualty incidents.
Trauma training in Afghanistan
August 2022: After a powerful earthquake of 6.1 magnitude occurred on 22 June 2022 in remote parts of southeastern Afghanistan (Paktika and Khost) -with 1455 people injured and more than 770 deaths – the need to strengthen the country’s emergency response capacities has become increasingly urgent.
UK-Med’s Senior Health Advisor Teresa, a nurse with significant humanitarian experience, and Health Referent Paul, a Consultant Emergency Doctor, travelled to Kabul in August 2022 to deliver another training program with IOM.
The week-long program will provide hands-on trauma training for health staff; helping to support mass casualty incident responses that are lifesaving during the ongoing humanitarian situation.
Supporting Afghanistan’s battle against COVID-19
March 2022: After experiencing a harsh winter and suffering weeks of consistently freezing temperatures, Afghanistan was in a protracted crisis due to conflict and instability, and unfortunately, once more in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis.
All of this was compounded by the global COVID-19 pandemic. In February, the IFRC reported that fewer than 10 of the country’s 37 public COVID-19 health facilities remained functional, and they struggled to keep up with demand.
UK-Med’s Health Director Ram and Emergency Nurse Sophia travelled to Kabul to support the country’s COVID-19 response. They delivered a training programme to physicians from across 12 provinces to help staff treat and care for COVID-19 patients in a safe, effective manner.
“Our mission at UK-Med is to make sure that everyone, no matter where they live, has the healthcare they need when disasters or crises – including outbreaks – hit,” Dr Ram said.
“We continue to work around the world to put in the systems and processes that will help healthcare systems deal with an outbreak of COVID-19, as well as training and preparing frontline health care workers that will ultimately save lives.”