MSF Worried About Deteriorating Health Care Situation In Afghanistan - Mission Chief

Humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) is concerned over the fact that situation with health care in war-torn Afghanistan continues to further deteriorate, Djoen Besselink, the head of MSF mission for Afghanistan, told Sputnik in an interview.

KABUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th December, 2018) Humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) is concerned over the fact that situation with health care in war-torn Afghanistan continues to further deteriorate, Djoen Besselink, the head of MSF mission for Afghanistan, told Sputnik in an interview.

The MSF is currently implementing its projects in six Afghan provinces, and the experience gained by the mission showed that over the past 10 years, the quality of medical services in the country had significantly decreased, with Afghans experiencing problems with access to medical services in the country, Besselink explained.

"So people come to our centers, they travel sometimes long hours, simply because they cannot find health care where they live. I think we had a few patients research. So 50-55 percent of our patients actually said they come to our hospitals because they cannot find any in the area where they live ... There is no stuff or lack of medication, and ... the donors' funding is getting less, there are a lot of constraints on the people," Besselink said.

According to Besselink, in the country's east, where the MSF is implementing mother and child programs, the MSF teams assist around 40 percent of the total deliveries in the province just because the organization can offer free and qualitative health care.

He added that charges for medical services were being reimposed in the country.

"It does not sound like high amounts if you look at the use of it, but if you take it into account with how much people make and how many people live below the poverty line we fear that it will ever ... and need more access to quality health care," Besselink indicated.

Besselink stated that the organization did not have data about how many people in Afghanistan have access to basic health care, but stressed that many Afghans were in dire need of it.

"So when we know how many people come to our hospitals, so we see how many people we treat and we ask our patients what is the reason you come to our hospital and you do not go to the hospital in your village or district. But it is difficult to say on a whole country level," Besselink noted.

Afghanistan has long been in a state of turmoil, with the government fighting the Taliban radical movement, which has been holding vast territories in rural areas under its control and regularly launches offensives in key big cities. The situation has been exacerbated by the activities of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia), which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2015. As Afghan and foreign military have been working to put an end to fighting in the country, humanitarian organizations have been making considerable contribution to the stabilization of situation in the country.