Assessing needs in Afghanistan.

In October a mixed team from Interburns and Universitats Kinderspital Zurich (University Children’s Hospital) visited Kabul to work with local partners at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health (IGICH). IGICH has the main paediatric burns unit for Afghanistan and treats around 1,000 inpatients a year from all over the country. The service has 40 beds for burns and a small but dedicated team. The collaboration between these Afghan, Swiss and British partners is funded by the Swiss Committee for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Dr Tom Potokar and Renate Pfann (occupational therapist) met with Dr Habib-ur-Rahman Qasim, Head of Unit and paediatric burn surgeon, and his team of nurses and 2 surgical colleagues to undertake a joint initial collaboration. A participatory method was used through staff identifying areas of need. Most of the staff only have ‘on the job’ experience, which makes an Essential Burn Care training in the core principles of burn care a high priority.

Although this is just the start, there is a strong foundation for the future due to the dedicated team at IGICH. Future programmes are being planned in Kabul for 2017, as well as staff involvement in other programmes such as a consensus meeting to develop standard policies and outcome measures in early 2017 and fellowship opportunities at the Interburns Training Centres.

Interburns very much looks forward to working with Dr Habib and his team and our partners in Switzerland to build the capacity of this key burn service for child patients in Afghanistan.