tailieunhanh - Nursing, midwifery and allied health education programmes in Afghanistan

African Regional Health Report (WHO, 2006), the first study to look at health trends among 738 million Africans, observed that more investment was needed to cut disease and tackle poverty and because of AIDS and armed conflicts, the health situation in many African countries has not improved in recent years and in some cases has worsened. In Asian context, Bandara (2005, p. 34) observes, “Developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region are in different stages of economic development and have varying levels of health systems. For the very poor, outreach of adequate basic health services is still a challenge; for others. | Original Article Nursing midwifery and allied health education programmes in Afghanistan P. Herberg PhD RN Associate Professor Chair Department of Nursing California State University Fullerton CA USA HERBERG P. 2005 Nursing midwifery and allied health education programmes in Afghanistan. International Nursing Review 52 123-133 Background In 2001 Afghanistan was the centre of the world s attention. By 2002 following 23 years of internal conflict - including Soviet invasion civil war and Taliban rule plus 3 years of drought the country was just beginning the process of re-establishing its internal structures and processes. In the health sector this included the revival of the Ministry of Health MOH . The MOH was assisted in its efforts by multiple partners including the UN donor and aid agencies and a variety of non-governmental organizations. The author served as a consultant to the Aga Khan University School of Nursing in partnership with the World Health Organization and the MOH as it took on the work of strengthening nursing midwifery and allied health education programmes for Afghanistan. Aim This paper will focus on the initial assessment of that sector. It will describe the situation as it existed in 2002 by examining the Kabul Institute of Health Sciences IHS and then turn briefly to the current state of affairs. Conclusions Despite the uncertainties of daily life in Afghanistan the country has successfully initiated the reconstruction process. In the health sector this can be seen in the work done at the Kabul IHS. Progress has been made in a number of areas most notably in development and implementation of nursing and midwifery curricula. However no one would deny that much more work is needed. Keywords Afghanistan Health sector Nursing midwifery education Reconstruction Introduction The world s attention has been riveted recently to the turmoil and strife created globally by civil conflict war and terrorism in places such as Bosnia Chechnya Iraq and .