Life and Death in Kandahar

OUTSIDE the Wire

Rakesh Patel outside the hospital

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The medical personnel who live and work at the Kandahar air base are not supposed to travel outside "the wire", beyond the confines of the base. This is for their own protection. An exception is made, however, when doctors leave the base to teach at a new local hospital, built by the Americans, for Afghanistan's army.

Today, Rakesh Patel, a civilian ICU doctor from Ottawa who has chosen to work for a month at Role 3 hospital, leaves the security of Kandahar air base to train Afghan doctors and medics.