On Monday a medical team of Canadians, Americans and Afghans jammed aboard two British Chinook helicopters and landed deep in Taliban country to hold what the military calls village medical outreach.
Within minutes of the choppers noisily thumping down the jagged valley, hundreds of poor farmers and their children, some with herds of goats and cattle in tow, began lining up to wait in the hot sun.
For many it will be their fi rst time ever seeing a doctor.
"We are here to help these people, we want to make them healthier," said Chenette, a health administrator with the Edmonton-based 1 Field Ambulance, who strides around carrying a C-5 rifle.
The medical team hopes to cajole the villagers into taking deworming medicine and to vaccinate the children against polio, a disease that is sweeping Afghanistan.
"We are telling them basically that this is a safe area today.
Come out and we will get you the vaccines." As the doctors and medics set up shop, Canadian and Afghan troops scan the ridges that frown over the compound for Taliban.
Three men are seen on a far-off hill watching the gathering crowd. When Afghan Army soldiers excitedly train a heavy machine-gun on the hill, the trio melts away into the landscape.
"There are Taliban all over the place," said Warrant Offi cer Chris Thorne, who warns the medical team about improvised explosive devices -- military jargon for roadside bombs.
In the past few months there have been a half-dozen such bomb explosions around Gumbad. Canadian soldiers have dubbed the area IED Alley.
Less than a kilometre away from the clinic, two platoons of light armoured vehicles -- the LAV IIIs -- stand by in reserve in case of trouble.
Seemingly oblivious to the threat, groups of men and boys begin entering the compound and into a human assembly line of medical staff.
A team of U.S. navy corpsman and an Afghan interpreter patiently explain the benefi ts of the vaccines to the village elder and his oldest son, who agree to not only take the medicine, but to help administer it.
Soon more than 100 of boys are wincing at the "taste" of the vaccines, which they manfully swallow under the intense gaze of their peers.
Then it is off to see a doctor with their fathers or grandfathers.
The men have not allowed their wives to attend the clinic, although a few of their daughters are on hand to be screened by female doctors.
PUBLICATION: The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
DATE: 2006.06.27
SOURCE: Canadian Press
No comments:
Post a Comment