[File] This month, the Tulipe association donated a tonne of health products to the Institut Médical Français pour la Mère et l’Enfant (IMFE) in Kabul, Afghanistan. This reference establishment was built and is managed by La Chaîne de l’Espoir, an NGO supported by the Tulipe association for the past two years. Sophie Tran, the NGO’s Regional Manager for Asia, and Aziz Jan, Director General of the IMFE, discuss the situation in Afghanistan and its impact on the IMFE, whose operations are threatened by the return of the Taliban to power.
On 15 August 2021, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, taking Kabul. This return has only exacerbated a humanitarian situation that was already critical long before that date. ” According to the ReliefWeb report last February, two-thirds of the Afghan population will need humanitarian aid and protection in 2023, which represents the biggest and most serious humanitarian crisis in the world”, points out Aziz Jan, Executive Director of the IMFE [Read the full interview]. It is against this backdrop of severe economic contraction, exacerbated by international sanctions targeting the regime in power, that the Tulipe association and its member healthcare companies have made a donation of health products that recently arrived in the country. ” This crisis is affecting all sectors, job losses are very high and international aid, particularly development aid, has also been hard hit”, explains Sophie Tran.
A model hospital in Kabul
The IMFE in Kabul is the reference establishment and recipient of Tulipe’s donation. “In 2021, we made an initial donation in coordination with the Crisis and Support Centre for Afghanistan. It was this unit of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs that put us in touch with La Chaîne de l’Espoir. The French embassy is very close to this NGO, particularly the IMFE in Kabul, which is carrying out an exemplary mission in the country”, explains Alexandre Laridan, Director of Operations for the Tulipe Association. This hospital, built in 2006, provides care in most paediatric, medical and surgical specialities for Afghan children and women.
The IMFE welcomes patients from all social backgrounds and from all over the country (La Chaîne de l’Espoir – Photo archives)
Comprehensive care for Afghan patients
In 2016, a 3-storey building dedicated to gynaecology-obstetrics and neonatology was built, as well as “Le Pavillon des Enfants”, with 15 rooms and 45 beds. The IMFE works with local medical teams and welcomes patients from all social backgrounds and from all over the country. ” The establishment takes care of their transfer from their region of origin to Kabul, their accommodation, meals and care”, explains Sophie Tran. The IMFE has been weakened by the serious Afghan crisis, she continues: “the first difficulty is the departure of many qualified medical staff trained by the volunteer teams of La Chaîne de l’Espoir, as well as some of the administrative staff”.
Return of the Taliban and measures against women: the organisation in difficulty
This flight of skills, due to the return of the Taliban to Kabul, is causing difficulties for the La Chaîne de l’Espoir teams on the ground and forcing them to adapt. This is being done by reorganising the medical teams to cope, for example, with the departure of specialists who used to deal with very complex cases of visceral or orthopaedic surgery. ” The aim of this reorganisation is to take on children and women who are currently on the waiting list for this type of pathology,” explains Sophie Tran. On 24 December 2022, the Taliban ordered NGOs to stop working with Afghan women. This restrictive measure forced the La Chaîne de l’Espoir teams at theIMFE to segment and separate men and women within the hospital and the Children’s Pavilion. ” We are continuing our dialogue with the authorities, as with all stakeholders, but we strongly condemn the measures taken by the Taliban since their arrival, particularly the treatment reserved for women”, adds Sophie Tran.
Despite everything, continuing our mission to help the most vulnerable members of society
La Chaîne de l’Espoir’s partnerships with NGOs, particularly for the care of refugees, have also come to an end, as some have left Afghanistan following the same decree preventing women from working in these structures. Despite this, the NGO, co-founded and chaired by Dr Eric Cheysson, is courageously and resiliently pursuing its mission on the ground by renewing these partnerships to continue helping refugees. “Since the Taliban took over the country, supplies have become increasingly complex for Afghan structures. The country is even more dependent on humanitarian aid than before. In fact, it is one of the WHO’s priority areas, and dedicated health clusters have been set up to help the population. Around 1,000,000 Afghans receive treatment every month thanks to humanitarian aid”, concludes Alexandre Laridan.
“Saving children today to build the world of tomorrow”.This is the credo of La Chaîne de l’Espoir, an international NGO founded in 1994. La Chaîne de l’Espoir is an international, independent and non-political medical NGO. Its mission is to improve access to medical and surgical care for vulnerable people, particularly children and women, in fragile or crisis situations. In addition to providing care, La Chaîne de l’Espoir strengthens the skills of medical and paramedical teams with the aim of achieving autonomy through training, support in hospital engineering and technology transfer. |
