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10/13/2003: "Kandahar Chronicles #27 - 13/10/2003"

We pulled up the leafy drive and stopped the Hilux in front of the green doors of the Infectious Disease Ward of Mirwais Hospital. I walked in with our Ward Supervisor, Yaqub, and stopped to let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Doctors and nurses walked busily around the various male and female wings. Relatives of patients talked in the corridors clutching apples and loaves of bread. An old lady spotted me and tugged at my elbow, jabbering incessantly in Pashtu. Yaqub interceded and directed her to a nurse. He explained that she was asking which room her husband was in. He walked her to the door and she left mumbling to herself. He told me with a sad smile that her husband had died years before on the ward, since then she came in every other week asking about him.

We walked past the isolation rooms and the lab towards the kitchen at the end of the hall. The halls are painted the same sickly green that seems to be common in many hospitals worldwide. I’m finally in a position to change that colour if I want, maybe emerald green or turquoise. Too bad we weren’t looking after the paediatric ward then I could really have some fun. Patients hooked up to IV’s followed me with their eyes as I passed their rooms. I could see that I was mistaken for an expat doctor, and could sense their silent pleas for me to cure whatever it was that was plaguing them. I felt like a fraud and carried on toward the kitchen. Leaky pipes and poor drainage were the extent of my duties here today.

The old lady who works preparing the supplemental food mix greeted me with a toothless smile and gestured towards the puddle spreading slowly over the floor. I’m about as close to being a plumber as I am to being a doctor. In the three years MSF has been supervising the IDW with the Ministry of Health the pipes have been a constant headache for a series of logisticians. I did some measurements and decided to call in the experts from the bazaar to sort it out. Yaqub had some work to do so I wandered outside to our temporary Basic Health Unit we set up in the tents we usually use for isolation in times of epidemics. A nurse was seeing to a couple of men from Zhare Dasht that had been brought down in an ambulance. The system of referral we have in place now isn’t ideal but it allows us to treat the more serious cases from the camp.

I’ve been neglecting the ward lately with all the security concerns. The lighting is insufficient with the lack of city power and hurricane lamps will be distributed when they become available in the shops. The doors open into the hallway because someone fitted the prefabricated panels they’re part of to the opposite walls of the corridors. Medics weave down the halls like slalom skiers. Paint scarred by electrical fires attest to the original state of the wiring before the previous log sorted it out. Two kids with a prosthetic leg each sat down on the steps beside me and greeted me as doctor. Yaqub came out of the ward and laughed. I’m a big guy and with longish hair, a five day growth of beard, Ray Bans and a smoke hanging out of my mouth. I hardly look like the smart looking professionals working on the ward behind me. Well, I’ll teach them how to flick the Pepsi caps laying around until the driver brings the car back from the office. They loved it, at least laughter will take their minds off their injuries for a while.