AFGHAN CRISIS APPEAL
‘Please don’t let the people of Afghanistan be forgotten’
“We are treating a lot of patients and at times we’ve been close to being overwhelmed. In the intensive care unit, we’ve had up to three children in each bed. That’s 50 extremely sick children in a space intended for 20.
We’ve seen a lot of malnourished children, but the biggest problem we’re facing at the moment is measles. This year the whole of Afghanistan, not just our project in Herat, has seen a huge increase in cases. We’re currently seeing more than 200 cases a week, mostly children under five years old – 60 per cent of whom need to be admitted and need extra care.
Measles is easily preventable by vaccination, but the crisis in Afghanistan means that there aren’t enough vaccines here. Not enough children are being vaccinated.
One little girl was brought to us who was about three months old. She was tiny, had a red, blotchy rash spreading down her body and was struggling to breathe. We rushed her to the resuscitation table, but her breathing got worse. She had measles and pneumonia and she was exhausted. We’d all seen this before, when a child’s body runs out of energy, runs out of fight.
In intensive care we see such sick, sick kids. And there are some days when you just think: ‘Everyone is so sick, how is this going to get better?’
But we weren’t ready to give up on her. As a team, we worked to treat her and keep her alive. Her mother was with us the whole time, talking to her baby, stroking her hair. We worked for so long and tried so many things and eventually her breathing began to improve, and she slowly came back to us.
Ever since then, we’ve been busy. We’ve opened a new 60-bed unit for measles patients and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to save even more lives.
Much of the world’s attention is focused on Ukraine at the moment. But even with so many terrible things happening in the world, I hope the people of Afghanistan will not be forgotten. The situation here is very hard and people still desperately need our help.”