“To Build a Society Without that Terrible Disease, Which is War.”
Emanuele Nannini, EMERGENCY’s Country Director in Afghanistan, joined a roundtable last Tuesday, where he shared how hospitals perceive the current status of humanitarian aid in the country.
“Healthcare is always one of the most affected areas, just as it is now. Access to it is still a privilege. Our hospitals are free of charge but unfortunately there are not many other hospitals like ours where patients don’t have to pay for treatment.
What the healthcare system has been experiencing now is the direct consequence of what happened in August: a serious brain drain of health professionals and a restricted, limited access of funds. This has produced a serious constraint on the supply chain of medicines, especially those which must be transported at controlled temperatures.
However, it is also the result of chronic crises that have protracted throughout the years – conflict, drought, and many other emergencies, that have been addressed with no more than six to twelve month-long projects, bringing no resilience or sustainability.
We believe in investing in the long term – both in terms of infrastructure and human resource – to create a society that builds a peaceful and prosperous country.
While the recent events in Ukraine have shown war can happen anywhere, the aftermath of war in Afghanistan has shown the only real way to bring about change is to remove war from our vocabulary, and build a culture of peace together from schools, media, and everyday life.