SGAA Activities in 2002
Jalalabad Physiotherapy services - SGAA has continued its activities for the disabled throughout the year despite difficulties with the security situation. Local shooting matches between commanders, or threats to hijack aid agency vehicles, have led to the temporary suspension of our outreach programme on several occasions. The outreach programme sends male and female physios to health clinics in rural areas in Nangarhar and Laghman provinces to identify and treat the physically disabled, particularly women and children who have less chance of leaving their villages to seek help. The interruption of this programme has inevitably had a knock-on effect and patient figures were down in 2002 compared to 2001. Still SGAA's main centre in Jalalabad remains busy - it is heart-warming to see how many parents still bring their children for treatment despite the difficulties of distance and transport.
Orthopaedic workshop - Orthopaedic appliances and mobility aids have continued to improve in quality. Our Committee members, John Fixsen (orthopaedic surgeon) and John Lamb (orthotist) came out in March to review the project and were happy with improvements to all appliances, including our own prosthetic feet. John Fixsen worked with local surgeons and offered to arrange supplies of urgently-needed surgical instruments. SGAA appointed a new Afghan orthopaedic surgeon in Jalalabad and hopes to give him additional training in future. SGAA plans to invite Motivation, who designed the 3-wheel and 4-wheel wheelchairs made in the component workshop, to come out and evaluate production in 2003 and make recommendations for a hand-propelled wheelchair. SGAA wheelchair users have particularly requested this.
Training courses - Our new physiotherapy students started their two-year course in March 2002 and completed their first half-year exams in August; 13 men and 12 women passed the exams successfully. They will be sent on clinical placements at the end of their first year to local hospitals and clinics throughout the region. Our physiotherapy consultant and committee member, Mrs Paddie Chanmugam, spent 3 months at the beginning of the year preparing and starting the training course with the teachers - a team of Afghan doctors and physiotherapists. This is the first time that SGAA has successfully launched a training programme entirely taught by its Afghan staff members. Much of the credit for this is due to Paddie.
In addition 3 of our senior orthopaedic Afghan technicians have been busy completing a part-time course at the Pakistan Institute for Orthotics and Prosthetics [PIPOS] in Peshawar, Pakistan. This course has given them sufficient theoretical knowledge to enable them to teach other technicians and pass on their own skills.
Health Education - The health education programme has been boosted this year by the appointment of a supervisor, Dr Shah Wali. He has devised a training programme for all health educators based on his own child-to-child training course. The health educators not only teach patients at the clinics about prevention of disability in the home and outside, but they also visit local schools to teach the children, through role play, about the dangers of accidents in the homes and the importance of hygiene. In 2003 we hope to do a survey to see the effect of these classes on the local communities and whether disability is better understood as a result of this programme.
Women's Rights - There has been a huge professional improvement for all of SGAA's women staff this year since the departure of the Taliban. Now our female physiotherapists and orthotists can talk to their male colleagues without fear. Our senior woman physiotherapist is now able to attend internal SGAA management meetings [before she had to come to Pakistan to meet her colleagues!] and can also represent us at meetings with other organizations. While many conservative Afghans still have reservations about women working outside the home, particularly after marriage, there is no doubt that it is crucial that women be allowed to be educated and work as health professionals if the level of health care is to improve in Afghanistan.
Kabul Mother and Child Clinic - The mother and child physiotherapy clinic that SGAA set up in Kabul in June 2001 continues to be extremely busy. The clinic was transferred to the northern suburb of Khair Khana at the beginning of the year where it serves many people from the rural areas of the Shomali plain to the north of Kabul and is staffed by 1 full-time and 2 part-time female physiotherapists. Patients come for physiotherapy treatment to the clinic and are then referred to other hospitals or workshops as necessary. Four health educators are attached to the clinic and visit local schools and clinics to talk about what disability is and how it can be prevented.
Kabul Orthopaedic Centre - At the beginning of September 2002 SGAA signed a contract to provide support to the orthopaedic centre which it had equipped and sponsored between 1996 and 1998. The staff need refresher courses to improve their professional skills and the building needs repairs and repainting. SGAA were fortunate to find support from Ashram International in October 2002. Ashram agreed to pay part of the running costs of the centre for one year. This centre is ideally placed in the centre of Kabul to treat a variety of patients and has large rooms that provide ideal space for training students.