Healthcare Access to the Poor in Afghanistan

Provision of Quality Healthcare Services to the Poor

According to the World Bank estimates, over 2/3^rd of the Afghanistan population live under poverty line. There is no social health insurance and more than 76% of the healthcare expenses are paid by families’ out-of-pocket. An estimated 6 million people have no access, or insufficient access to healthcare due to unavailability of the public health services or unaffordability of costly private health services.

For the past 15 years, FMIC has been serving Afghans regardless of their abilities to pay while focusing on quality services, innovation, and excellence. FMIC's Patient Welfare Program covers a part or the full cost of the treatment of the patients whose family income is less than US$ 200 a month. This program enables people with no or less financial resources to avail high quality in-patient and out-patient medical and surgical services. In other words, FMIC ensures that no patient leaves the hospital untreated due to lack of money. FMIC’s Patient Welfare Program has been in place since the establishment of the hospital and has helped over 600,000 needy patients with services worth over $41 million.

For many patients, even a $10 expense is an obstacle to healthcare. Imagine that just a few dollars you contribute can help save a life. A donation of $10 will pay for an initial visit to a doctor, $15 will pay for one-night stay of a patient in general ward, $65 will pay for one night stay of a patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). 

Ileal Conduit Urinary Diversion-Another First -Time -Surgery in Afghanistan

Abubakr (3) lives in Kapisa, a province in the central part of Afghanistan. When he was a one-month-old baby, doctors observed a rare disease of bladder exstrophy. In this disease, the bladder is open and exposed on the outside of the abdomen. This disease was an anguish for the whole family since many of the doctors told them that it was not possible to treat him in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Abubakr’s family was too poor to take him abroad to seek a treatment.

Considering the lack of family’s financial resources, the provincial hospital of Kapisa referred Abubakr tola Chaine de l’Espoir located in Kabul through which Abubakr’s family visited Dr. Homayoon Ghairatmal, the paediatric surgeon at FMIC.

Thankfully, FMIC is a safe haven for patients across Afghanistan. The protective measures were applied accurately and the infection control team was trying their best to save the patients. When little Abubakr visited FMIC paediatric surgeons, he was in a critical condition and his father was losing his hope.

After a complete checkup, it was confirmed that little Abubakr was suffering from a rare disease called “Bladder Exstrophy” in which the lower part of abdomen wall is not formed as a result, the urinary bladder is out of abdomen and it’s not formed normally and if the patient is not treated, the prognosis will be kidney failure or cancer.

The surgery team made their final decision to conduct a surgery for the first time in paediatric surgery of Afghanistan, an “ileal conduit urinary diversion”. Of course a multi-disciplinary team including nurses, anesthetists’ and surgeons was formed to avoid errors.  In this surgery, the ureters (the tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder) drain freely into part of the ileum (the last segment of the small intestine). The end of the ileum into which the ureters drain was then brought out through an opening in the abdominal wall. Within few days, Abubakr was getting recovery fast and convincing.

In the follow-up visits, in early 2021, Abubakr was a normal kid playing with his parents without any suffering. According to Abubakr’s father, “it was impossible for me to travel abroad and there wasn’t any chance of healing to my son, but FMIC was here to help me”.

His treatment was done free of cost at FMIC, the family of the boy was happy and satisfied they were amazed by having such a hospital in this country.