Health clinic in Kunar’s Marawara gets ambulance

KABUL (Pajhwok): Humanitarian Assistance Empowerment Organization (HAEO) and UNDP helped provide an ambulance to the Balawro Health Sub-Centre in the Marawara district of eastern Kunar province.

The people of this area faced a huge problem due to non-availability of ambulance. In addition, serious patients lost their lives due to lack of appropriate services in the clinic.

As a result of social monitoring, sector meetings, and close follow-up, the Balawro Health Sub-Center has been provided one ambulance and the issue has been resolved.

The people of Balawro said they were happy and thanked HAEO and UNDP for raising their voice and resolving the ambulance issue.

“I believe if the social monitoring of health and other public services improved and continued, the existing issues and corruption will be resolved,” said Norhabib, a resident.

Balawro health Sub-center is one of the remote health centers located near the Durand Line in Marawara district of Kunar province.

There are in total four four health clinics operating in the Marawara district for approximately 21,000 population.

Every day 180 to 200 patients visit the Balawro health sub-center alone and this health sub-center provides health facilities to 200 households.

Most of the patients come from far away area and they include elderly men, women and children.

The main and serious issue identified in this clinic during the Community Based Monitoring was no ambulance service.

Chinar Gul, a resident of Marawara and a client of Banawro clinic, shared his story with Mohibullah, a member of the district Social Accountability Network established by HAEO.

“My wife was ill on the childbirth and her condition was very serious, we came to the Balawro clinic for childbirth and when we reached hardly to the clinic, there was neither enough facility nor ambulance to shift the patient to the central clinic or provincial hospital. I find a taxi after hard endeavours and I put my wife in the taxi, but unfortunately, we did not reach the hospital on time and my wife passed away in the taxi, said Chinar Gul”.

The above issue has been shared with the provincial and district health sector officials by the District Social Accountability Network that was established by HAEO under the Anti-Corruption Grants Program of UNDP supported by the Royal Danish Embassy.

The issue has been closely followed with the directorate of public health of Kunar province and district health officials through sector meetings.

UNDP has established the Anti-Corruption Committees also known as Humanitarian Assistance Empowerment Organization (HAEO) through its Anti-Corruption, Transparency, Integrity and Openness (ACTION) project -with financial support from the Royal Danish Embassy in Kabul. On December 9, Anti-Corruption Day is going to be marked internationally.

Fighting corruption is a global concern. While corruption impacts every country, evidence shows that it hurts poor people disproportionately.

Corruption hinders efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violation of human rights, distorts markets, erodes quality of life and allows organised crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.

It contributes to instability, poverty and is a dominant factor driving fragile countries towards state failure.