Big things are happening in a small clinic a few miles outside Camp Bastion- the kind of things that change the collective ideas of a group of people.
At the Shorabak clinic, everything looks like business-as-usual, at first. People come in, many of them locals, get treated and leave a little healthier and hopefully a little better informed than when they came in.
The facility itself isn’t anything out of the ordinary. The building belongs to the Afghan national army and is shared between a group of ANA medics and a small team of medics with the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force.
Sit down and stay a while though and someone might see something that isn’t seen every day at military clinics, local females coming in for care. That’s because at the Shorabak clinic, they have something special, a team of female medics who treat local females.
Females coming to military bases for care may not seem strange to those from other areas of the world, but in Afghanistan, especially in Helmand province, this is the first time females have been allowed to seek treatment at a military facility, according to an interpreter who works with the CJSOTAF team.
One of the members of the female treatment team is an Army captain who has been working at the clinic for approximately two months. For security reasons, her name will not be mentioned in this article. In her job at home, she’s a primary care provider at her base’s medical clinic.
The captain said she provides the same basic primary medical care she does back home. Diseases are often more progressed than in the states due to lack of available health care; however, the extent of service she provides is the same. The big difference from her job in the states is that here she’s creating an opportunity for a whole sector of the population to receive care that would have been otherwise unavailable.
As an example, an elderly woman came in for follow-up checks on three gun shot wounds. She was shot by the Taliban while working in the fields by her home. The captain and another medic from the team checked her wounds, which were healing well.
The captain said she sees her work as not just providing medical care to the men, women and children who come to the clinic, but also helping to change how Afghan society views the role of females.
One way the captain said she is changing this collective mind set is that she’s a female doing a job that many Afghanis are not accustomed to seeing females perform.
“I think it’s extremely valuable just for the men that come here to see me as a female,†the captain said. “It changes their definition.
“In their culture, for any type of change to occur — because it’s a patriarchic society — men have to accept the changes. So for them to be able to see me as a female in the role of a professional health care provider helps them to see that change might be a good thing,†she explained. “It’s just something they’re not ever exposed to here within their own culture.â€
The captain said the men who come to the clinic don’t have any problems being treated by a female. If anything, they’re glad to receive care first and perhaps secondly surprised to be receiving care from a female.
An interpreter who works directly with the captain agreed with her statements. He also added these changes in perception are allowing women to be allowed to seek treatment for the first time on military bases.
The captain said if it wasn’t for the changes in perception the FTT is making, it would not be possible for people like the woman with the gun shot wounds to come to the clinic to get help. They would have to either wait until a medical team went out to them or simply go without.
The captain said it is her hope that her presence and work is changing the perception of the roles available for women and that perhaps one day these changes will grow into a better quality of life for Afghans, specifically in the mortality rates associated with childbirth.
“According to the World Health Organization, there are only a couple nations in sub-Saharan Africa with worse maternal and infant mortality rates than Afghanistan,†the captain said. “Most women in Afghanistan, especially here in the Helmand valley, give birth in the home without a midwife, without a doctor, with no medical care at all.â€
The captain said the solution is getting more young women into midwife schools, such as the one currently running in Kabul. The problem, however, is the girls need a high school diploma to attend and many areas in Afghanistan have just recently started allowing women to progress their education as far as high school, which is something else she hopes her presence will help reinforce.
More than anything, the captain said her goal is to make lasting changes in the lives of the Afghan people and for that reason, the focus of their mission is reinforcing the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
“We try to put an Afghan face on what we do because we want people to accept the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,†the captain said. “It’s very important that the people support and work with the government. That’s the long term goal.â€
