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The Worst Place to Be Poor {Gadling}
Jan 14th 2007 3:19PM I can think of worse places to be poor - places like Afghanistan where the average income is about 30 dollars/month. People starving and living in horrible conditions. Little or no medical, dental or optical care. No school for your kids. In some areas women walk up to 6 miles daily to get just enough water for cooking and drinking. Average life expectantcy is about 45 yrs for men and women. Every 37 min on the average a woman dies in Afghanistan from TB. Mortality rate for women during pregnancy and delivery is 15 to 20%. Now thats one of the worst places on this planet to be poor.
Dining in Dushanbe: Delhi Darbar {Gadling}
Oct 23rd 2006 1:43AM I have been to the Delhi Darbar in Mazar and the one in Kabul. The one in Mazar was clean and the food was okay. However, the one in Kabul appeared dirty and the bathroom was horrible.
Hygiene and your hospital {ParentDish}
Aug 30th 2006 12:48AM I work in war-torn and impoverished nations. Now, for the past several years it has been Afghanistan and Southern Mexico. I work with a general surgeon in Mexico. His OR is clean, however, a far cry from sterile. I have never seen a patient of his with an OR inquired infection. A lot has to do with the fact, those people still have real immune systems unlike people in the US. Our food is contaminated with antibiotics and hormones. Their food is not. We use so many antibacterial soaps and cleaners and create super bugs. Also, we take antibiotics in the US like candy for every illness. They dont. For example, he sends a C-section patient home 4 to 6 hours after surgery with NO pain meds and NO antibiotics. The orthopedic surgeon in Kabul, Afghanistan does surgeries in his "OR," which is 5 x 10 ft. and there is nothing sterile. He has no water in the room. To cast patients he has to get water in a bucket outside the building on the sidewalk. He does not do extensive surgeries. However, he does take care of open fractures. I have seen where he has one patient still recovering from anesthesia on the "bed" and 2 other patient sitting on chairs - all in the so-called OR. Those patients dont complain, because they are poor and otherwise would not get any care. The surgical infection rate is almost not existing in his "OR".
When I ask the Mexican surgeon if he is not concerned that his kids touch his shoes he wears in and out of the OR, he told me, that he feels its like "immunizations" for his kids. Also, his kids (6 and 4) come and play in the OR under the OR table at times while he is doing surgery and his wife is doing the anesthesia.
