MAIDAN SHAR: A Taliban attack wrecked the operating theatre and left 160 staff and patients wounded, but the Maidan Shar hospital has never stopped serving the people of one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan.
During the attack, which targeted a nearby office of the intelligence services, a series of explosions broke nearly every window in the hospital, smashed down doors and destroyed medical equipment.
“There were three of us here in my office having lunch,” said doctor Abdul Samad Hakimi, the hospital director, remembering the horrors of the attack last month.
“We heard a loud noise, then another, and the windows exploding. We went out into the hallway. There were shards of glass everywhere and gunshots outside.” Miraculously the flying glass did not kill anyone, but 80 hospital staff and 80 patients sustained minor injuries in 45 minutes of mayhem. “The hospital was full of pieces of broken glasses and smoke, and all the patients came to hide in the corridor,” said Hakimi. “Wounded people were treating other wounded people.”
The attack demonstrated the resilience of many Afghan medical staff, but it also underlined the threat from Taliban militants. Madain Shar, in Wardak province, is just a 40 minutes drive from Kabul, and is situated on the national ring road that links the city to Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif.
“We are facing more and more security problems. We have a feeling that it is increasing,” said Anders Rosen, spokesman for the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), which manages the public hospital.
“This summer we had an ambulance attacked in Laghman (near Kabul). When the ambulance was on its way to hospital, it was hit by insurgents and one person was killed.” Rosen said that, despite the threats, the SCA was determined to stay even if Afghanistan spirals into turmoil after elections next year and the Nato withdrawal.
“We’ve been working here during the Soviet occupation (in the 1980s), during the civil war, and the Taliban... we will stay. We actually want to develop our efforts.”
At the hospital, amid the chaos of repair work, patients are still being treated by nurses such as Attiqullah Amarkhil, who was on duty when the Taliban attack started. Amarkhil, 50, was himself cut on the wrist by falling glass, but like all the staff refused to leave work.
“Even on the day of the attack, they did not stop providing services,” doctor Yousuf Fayez said. “They worked all night cleaning up the glass. We are prepared, we know what can happen.”
Abdul Wahid Taqat, a political analyst and retired army general, said that Wardak province provided a sobering symbol of the challenges ahead. “Insecurity or fighting in any part of the country has a direct effect on the security of Kabul,” he said. “This violence is not organised war but a guerrilla war, and it can spread.”
Afp
