Jalalabad: Establishment of a mother and child clinic

Jalalabad is located 200 km southeast of Kabul on the thoroughfare to Pakistan. About 300,000 people live in Jalalabad, the roads are unpaved, there are no sewers and no public telephone network. The electricity supply is unreliable.

The establishment of the women’s clinic took place in 1998 with financial support, which was carried out on site in the form of the construction and medical equipment of a building and the employment of doctors and nurses in Jalalabad. It was an outpatient health station that was initially only visited by women and their children. Reports about the simple, but effective and competent help from the clinic meant that it became known nationwide. Even after the bombing by the Allies on October 7th, 2001, the clinic continued to operate and is now a model facility for other regions in Afghanistan for the medical care of the population.

The MCH Clinic is located in a poor area of ​​the city. Twelve employees work in a rented building every working day. (A pediatrician, a gynecologist, four nurses, a pharmacist, a health educator, a laboratory assistant, two guards and a cleaner.) They look after and treat around 120 women and children daily for a small fee.

The focus is on maternity care and the treatment of young children. Ultrasound examinations are carried out regularly in the clinic. Furthermore, diseases of the respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal tract are mainly treated. With the help of UNICEF (delivery of vaccines) around 15,000 vaccinations against tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and measles are carried out annually. During the waiting times, patients receive detailed health advice.

All treatments are precisely documented and regularly reported to the association in Germany. The clinic is visited at least once a year by doctors from the ADAV in order to check the content and the accounting.