Ali*, 14, was playing in the fields with his friends outside Kunduz city in northern Afghanistan.

“We found something that looked like a battery. We picked it up and connected two wires sticking out, and it exploded in our faces.”

Ali’s family drove him to the newly opened Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgical hospital in Kunduz city. He had shrapnel in his face and injuries to his hands and arms.

“It was probably a detonator that someone had left behind” says Martin John Jarmin, an MSF surgeon. “His brother ended up totally blind, but Matiullah was lucky and will recover.”

In August 2011, MSF opened a surgical hospital in Kunduz. The only specialized surgical centre in northern Afghanistan, it is equipped with an emergency room, two operating theatres and an intensive care unit, and has 70 beds across four wards.

Before the trauma centre opened, people in the region suffering from severe injuries were forced to make long and dangerous journeys to Kabul or Pakistan – or visit expensive private clinics – in order to receive care. Few received the trauma care they required.

“The hospital is responding to a real need that wasn’t met before,” says Silvia Dallatomasina, MSF’s medical coordinator in Kunduz. “Most of our patients come from Kunduz, but a significant number also come from neighbouring provinces, or even as far away as Herat along the Iranian border.”

Less than a year after the hospital opened, the MSF team has treated more than 3,700 people.

Photo: Michael Goldfarb, MSF. |  A Man is transferred to an operating bed prior to surgery at an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

Although violence continues across northern Afghanistan, it is a relative lull – more of a slow burn than an all-out conflagration. Since the MSF hospital opened, the majority of patients have been victims of general trauma – road traffic accidents, domestic violence or civilian gunshot wounds.

But the conflict rears its head occasionally, resulting in inevitable casualties. Several bombings in Kunduz in recent months have brought multiple wounded to the hospital. On Feb. 25, more than 50 severely injured people arrived at the hospital gates in the space of a few hours, following demonstrations outside the local UN compound that had turned violent.

Some 300 Afghan and 20 international MSF staff work at the hospital. Since its opening, the hospital has performed more than 1,500 surgeries.

A big part of trauma care is follow-up after surgery with physical rehabilitation. In the rehab room, physio therapist Berangere Ghoy is helping Abdallah through his daily exercises.  Ghoy works for Handicap International, which collaborates with MSF in the Kunduz hospital.

“Abdallah broke his leg in a traffic accident in Badakshan, a province in eastern Afghanistan,” says Ghoy. “He was lucky that we didn’t have to amputate his leg. This boy is really brave – he has been in pain for more than a month, but never says anything.”

MSF teams also work in Ahmad Shah Baba Hospital in eastern Kabul and Boost Hospital in Lashkargah, Helmand province. The organization recently opened a maternity hospital in Khost in eastern Afghanistan. In all locations, MSF provides free medical care and works in all wards of the hospital.

MSF relies solely on private donations for its work in Afghanistan and does not accept any government funding.

 

* Names have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.

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