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CAMP HERO, Afghanistan — Regional hospital representatives met at Camp Hero's Kandahar Regional Military Hospital Nov. 17 to discuss how to better open the lines of communication between the local medical facilities and efficiently transfer and provide care for local patients.
Leadership from the Kandahar Regional Military Hospital, Kandahar Airfield's Role 3 hospital, Regional Command-South's medical director and Kandahar's Mirwais Hospital participated in the conference to discuss issues such as medical supplies, how to properly suggest the necessary medications for transferred patients and levels of care.
The largest issue was the need to properly track patients and provide the proper documentation when transferring patients from one facility to another. At times, paperwork on patients would get lost in transport, and the group decided to provide additional training for the staff to emphasize the need to ensure the documentation stayed with the patient.
While the leaders were conducting the meeting, Afghan surgeons were performing their first complex orthopedic surgery, with minimal U.S. assistance down the hall from the meeting room, to fix the leg of a local Afghan man who was injured in a car accident.
The surgery marked a milestone in the rapid development of Kandahar Regional Military Hospital's development of its infrastructure and the level of care the facility can provide.
Afghan Army Col. Abdul Basir, commanding officer of the Kandahar Regional Military Hospital, couldn't help but reminisce about how far Camp Hero's medical facility has come.
He said the hospital started operating in an old school in the area, providing whatever care they could with the limited space and resources they had. The hospital did not have a proper operating room, or enough supplies to adequately address the needs of the area's forces in the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police, their family members and the local community.
Two years later, he said, his physicians have modern technology, proper facilities, and enough room to care for a larger number of patients with their new 50 bed facility.
"I am very proud of the level of training that we currently have," said Basir. "Along with the mentoring that we are receiving, we will continue to be a successful hospital, and we will continue to improve."
Not only did Basir have high hopes for the present development of the hospital, he seemed to have a twinkle in his eye when he talked about his outlook for the medical center's long term development.
"The future looks very promising, and that is good news," he said with a grin.
The hospital is constructing an addition that will double the size of the facility and add an extra 50 beds to the hospital, making it a facility that has a capacity to treat 100 inpatients at a time.
At the end of the meeting, Canadian Col. Martin Bricknell, medical director for RC-S, said the meeting was epically important and urged the group to continue meeting and discussing how they can better provide for the facilities' patients.
"We've been here for quite a lot of time and covered a lot of issues," he said. "I think the most important thing to take away from this meeting is we need to do it again and continue to do so in the future."
| Date Taken: | 11.17.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 11.21.2009 02:21 |
| Story ID: | 41851 |
| Location: | CAMP HERO, AF |
| Web Views: | 450 |
| Downloads: | 298 |
This work, A first for Camp Hero: Open communication, near solo surgery, by Aaron Rosencrans, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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