Improving
medical care in Afghanistan
UB team joins international effort to send medical textbooks to war-torn country
By
DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor
Nearly
six years of Taliban rule and a decade-long war with Russia that ended
in 1989 has left Afghanistan's health-care infrastructure in a shambles.
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Lt.
Col. James Gardon (second from right) meets with other U.S. Army
personnel and Afghani physicians working to improve medical care. |
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Nearly
two-thirds of the Afghan population is without access to basic health-care
facilities, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the
situation is worse in rural areas, with a doctor-patient ratio as low
as 1 to 100,000. Infant and maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan
are among the highest in the world. One in four children will not reach
the age of five, most dying of vaccine-preventable diseases like polio
and tuberculosis. And every year, 17,000 women die from complications
related to childbearing.
While
international organizations are rallying to fulfill even the most basic
needs of food and clean water, there also is an immediate need for trained
medical personnel and supplies.
Some
members of the UB community, at the request of university alumnus and
Cheektowaga native Lt. Col. James J. Gardon, B.S. '86, have joined the
effort to improve medical care in Afghanistan by donating and shipping
40 boxes of medical textbooks to the country.
Gardon
is stationed in Kabul as part of the Coalition/Joint Civil Military
Operations Task Force charged with assessing and assisting United Nations
and non-governmental agencies in re-establishing their presence in Afghanistan.
A Desert Storm veteran who worked as an emergency/trauma nurse during
that conflict, Gardon is part of the public health team that is evaluating
the medical infrastructure in Kabul and the rest of the country.
About
a month ago, he sent a simple email query to UB asking for medical textbooks.
The response has been overwhelming.
"To
say the least, it (the Afghan health-care system) is in terrible shape
after 20-plus years in turmoil, especially after the Taliban," Gardon
wrote in an email to the Reporter from Kabul. "One of the greatest
needs expressed to me by physicians and hospital/medical staff is the
need for professional journals and particularly medical books. They
even expressed a preference for English texts. "Many of their texts
were burned by the Taliban simply because they were western," he added.
"During
the 1960s-'70s, Kabul University's medical school was one of the premier
medical schools in Central Asia, and now the school is in the process
of rebuilding," Gardon said, pointing out that the school's needs are
pretty basic, with a preference for texts on medical diagnosis and treatment
of diseases and surgical intervention.
He
said that one of the first places he thought of asking for medical textbooks
was his alma mater.
His
initial query for help was fielded by Hugh Jarvis, Web team information
coordinator for the Department of Creative Services in University Communications
who monitors email sent to eUB, the university's main portal.
Both Gardon and Jarvis agree this project was expedited because of the
Internet.
"This
is an ideal example of how you produce a Web site to facilitate information
flow," said Jarvis. "In this case, Lt. Col. Gardon was able to find
our Web site from Afghanistan, make his request, and we were able to
quickly connect him with people who were ready and able to help him
out. The Web is all about rapid connections: people to people, and people
to information."
Jarvis
forwarded Gardon's request to Pamela Rose, Web services and library
promotion coordinator for the Health Sciences Library.
"Dr.
Lee (Richard Lee, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics in the School
of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences) mounted an initiative in the medical
school, and I sent the call out over a number of library avenues," Rose
said.
The
lobby of the Health Services Library served as the collection site and
Lee and Rose coordinated the sorting, packing and shipping of the textbooks.
About 40 boxes of books were shipped to Afghanistan, with 26 of the
boxes coming from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. Another 20-30
boxes will be sent over within the next few months—donations are still
coming in every week.
"Dr.
Lee and Ellen Dussourd (director of International Student and Scholar
Services) provided initial funding for the project and Ellen is working
to arrange future funding," says Rose.
The
Graduate Student Association also contributed funding to the project.
While
the medical school in Kabul will be the primary recipient of the shipment,
other health-care facilities in Bagram, Herat and Konduz also will receive
textbooks.
"The
Health Sciences Library's posting of my very first request got the ball
rolling on a tremendous effort by businesses, hospitals, medical and
nursing groups, schools and individuals. To date, we have received more
than 5,000 books, 7,000 journals, 100 video and cassette tapes, and
thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies," he noted.
"Everything
was moving along—I was getting emails from various medical professionals
who read the library's posting—when an amazing thing happened. I was
working 18-20 days here in Kabul, going out on assessments all day,
then writing and rewriting proposals for projects we wanted to do,"
he said.
"Then
late one night, I got an email from Susan Yox of WebMD/Medscape, a Web
site that provides clinical information to clinicians and other health-care
professionals. Yox agreed to help me out and I got a page on Medscape
to promote my project worldwide. I got reponses from England, Germany,
Spain, Canada, and of course all across America."
Moreover,
one of Medscape's advertisers sent more than 300 sets of blood pressure
cuffs, stethoscopes and scrubs, along with dozens of other medical supplies.
