New Health Clinic Building in Kunduz To Benefit 120,000 People

On Thursday, the Afghan-German Cooperation handed over a new building as part of the Aqtapa Health Clinic to Kunduz Province’s Department of Public Health. The new Central Health Clinic and Emergency Obstetric Care Clinic located in Aqtapa will provide health services to around 120,000 people in all 64 villages of Qala-e Zal District.

The Department of Public Health provided the land for the construction of the building and will be responsible for its maintenance in future.

The Afghan-German Cooperation’s Stabilisation Program Northern Afghanistan (SPNA) financed the construction work at a total cost of about AFN 26.2 million.

In the past, accessing adequate health services in the area was a challenge. Patients in Aqtapa, Qala-e Zal District faced security risks while traveling the long distance to Kunduz City to access quality health care. This took time and was costly in terms of arranging unreliable transportation and overnight stays. The old clinic building, built in 1980, was demolished in conflict and was no longer in use. The Qala-e Zal District Development Assembly (DDA) and the Department of Public Health proposed this project in 2016 and construction started in 2017.

The Aqtapa Central Health Clinic and Emergency Obstetric Care Clinic was SPNA’s last project. The new building has 21 rooms, including emergency obstetric rooms, diagnostic rooms, delivery rooms, and a female staff bedroom. The clinic has all the necessary equipment such as hospital beds, delivery beds, staff beds, stretchers and operation lights. It meets all the modern hygiene and health clinic standards needed to provide appropriate health service. The higher quality equipment ensures staff can work in a safe environment, improves staff satisfaction, and ultimately benefits the level of health care quality for the community.         

The KfW Development Bank financed the Stabilisation Program Northern Afghanistan (SPNA) on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office (AA). The program aimed at strengthening local governance structures in Northern Afghanistan and improving the rural population’s living conditions. Thus, the program supported various infrastructure activities and capacity development. SPNA financed almost 430 projects in over 50 districts of Badakhshan, Kunduz, Takhar, and Baghlan including the construction, rehabilitation, or extension of over 280 schools and other educational facilities, 39 roads and bridges and 16 irrigation canals. At the same time, the project trained roughly 18,000 development council members in project selection and monitoring. The program’s total budget was more than AFN 7 billion. SPNA was implemented between 2010 and 2019 and is now concluded.