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Med team augments Afghan doctors, builds treatment capacity

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Lory Stevens
  • TF Warrior Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan --  With the assistance of Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team medics, doctors in Panjshir province treated 473 Afghan patients this week in two districts, Rohka and Shutol.

Crowds of people gathered at the clinics shortly after Air Force Capt. Glenn M. Little, medical team chief, Staff Sgt. Janine Duschka, medical technician, and Tech. Sgt. Dawn Tiemann, medical technician, arrived to support the medical engagements.

"The PRT coordinates medical engagements, or missions where members of the medical team go with local governors and Dr. Samad Karimi, the Director of Public Health, to local villages to help Afghans in need of medical care," said Army Maj. Blake Bass, Panjshir PRT liaison officer at Task Force Warrior.

Medical engagements are a platform for the medical team to work closely with Afghan providers. This allows opportunities for learning from each other's best practices and building up the medical community in Afghanistan. Delivering care to locals is always a secondary objective to showing the people of Afghanistan the Coalition is interested in them and respects the expertise of their medical system.

"Capacity-building is the goal," said Bass, as he explained the purpose of medical engagements is to allow local doctors to provide medical checkups as the PRT assists and supplements with items necessary for treatment.

According to Little, the sheer numbers of patients treated was astonishing.

"We assisted with 103 adult males, 196 pediatric males, 93 adult females and 81 pediatric females, totaling 473 patients within five hours," said Little. "Common complaints were headaches, back pain and gastrointestinal issues including diarrhea, reflux disease and parasites."

There was an opportunity for the PRT to supplement minor medicine stockage shortfalls with supplies they brought with them to the clinics. Pain control medications, such as Ibuprofen, Naprosyn and Tylenol, supplies of vitamins, Pedialyte and oral rehydration salts for dehydration were given out to patients during the medical engagements.

"We also treated a lot of cases of suspected parasites and provided education on hand-washing and proper drinking of water [boiling water as opposed to drinking it from the river]," said Little.

A cultural practice for Afghan women is to be seen only by female providers. The female provider at the clinic in Rohka District recently transferred to Kabul, leaving the community with only male providers.

"What was unique about this clinic is how Duschka and Tiemann really helped out as far as their female coverage, and our assistance was also appreciated in Shutol, a district with only one medical clinic," said Little.