Anabah Medical-Surgical Centre

It was a former barracks: we transformed it into a hospital for war victims.

When we arrived in Anabah in 1999, we opened a Surgical Centre to offer free treatment to victims of war and anti-personnel mines: our first project in Afghanistan. Landmines had been scattered during the Russian offensive, but twenty years later they continued to create victims, with no health facility in the valley that could treat them.

A hospital for the Panjshir Valley

Over the years, the Surgical Center has become a fully-fledged hospital, able to provide a range of services: emergency surgery, general surgery, traumatology, general medicine and paediatric care are now offered alongside war surgery. In 2015 alone, our doctors and nurses received over 39,000 patients.

Today, our hospital in the Panjshir Valley is a point of reference for the population of a very large area, inhabited by approximately 250,000 people.

Since 2003, the Anabah hospital also hosts the Maternity Centre, the only specialist, free-of-charge facility of its kind in the area.

The First Aid Post and Primary Healthcare Centre network

18 First Aid Posts and Health Centres are connected to the Anabah Medical-Surgical Centre, located in the most isolated villages in the valley and in the provinces of Kapisa, Parwan, Badakhshan and Salang Pass. In these facilities, local staff, supervised by international colleagues, provide primary health care and first aid to those who need it; our ambulances are available 24 hours a day to transfer patients who need to be hospitalised.

A training centre for Afghan doctors

The EMERGENCY hospital in Anabah is now recognised by the Afghan Ministry of Health as a Training Centre for Specialisation in Gynaecology, Obstetrics and Paediatrics. In 2015 alone, we had 14 specialising surgeons, paediatricians and gynaecologists. This is the result – and the recognition – of the work done over the years to provide free, high-quality healthcare to the population of the Panjshir Valley.

For more information

Project Sheet: EMERGENCY Medical-Surgical Centre in Anabah, Afghanistan