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A woman grimaces as the smiling Malaysian doctor fits her brand new set of dentures. In the mountainous province of Bamiyan, hospital services are in high demand, while trained staff are few and far between.
Luckily a contingent of 40 Malaysian soldiers are on hand to help the overwhelmed clinic in Bamiyan City train up new nurses and look after the hundreds of daily outpatients.
“They accept me well, especially the women, they like the female doctors. So, they are not shy,” says Major Dr Sulaila Sulaiman, smiling as she pokes and prods inside a patient’s mouth.
The ISAF team are based at the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team in the province’s capital and travel all over the province providing mobile clinics to the more remote areas.
Education is key
Training local people is key and it's female staff that are most in demand.
“The female nurses work harder than male nurses and the female nurses are also very kind”, says Dr Nasir Ahmad, Bamiyan Provincial Hospital's only fully-qualified dentist. Donning his surgical mask before treating his next patient, he blames a lack of education for the constant queue of local people that starts in the waiting room and extends out into the street.
“Because the people are uneducated, they don't know how to look after their teeth,” he says. “They only come to the clinic when their teeth are in a really bad condition.”
He turns back to the Afghan dental nurse and hands her a fresh set of moulds for dentures. With only a few weeks of experience, she's able to immediately start casting the false teeth under the watchful eye of Major Sulaiman.
“Now we're training her to make simple dentures”, explains Major Sulaiman. “If we can extend our stay here, maybe we can teach her how to make full dentures.”
The Malaysian contingent are hoping to extend their stay in Bamiyan. They plan to build a new clinic in the capital and continue their training programmes to include, of course, their famous dentures.