FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 16, 2006
Contact: Julie O'Brien
Phone: 617-250-9500
Email: jobrien@msh.org

Kabul, Afghanistan: Care for Afghan Families (CAF), an Afghan NGO currently delivering the Basic Package of Health Services to 1.2 million people in Baghlan, Kabul and Takhar provinces, has been awarded $420,000 to deliver the Essential Package of Hospital Services (EPHS) at the Badakhshan Provincial Hospital. The EPHS defines the services to be provided at each level of Afghanistan's hospital sector and standardizes hospital staffing, equipment, materials and drugs. The award, funded by USAID, will enable CAF to improve the quality of the provincial hospital's services and management as well as increase the capacity of the Badakhshan Provincial Health Department.

Badakhshan Provincial Hospital is one of five provincial hospitals whose implementation of EPHS is being supported by USAID through the REACH Program until the end of April 2006. Under the terms of the award, CAF will use Standards-based Management and Performance Quality Improvement approaches, introduced by REACH, to achieve its objectives. REACH will also supply CAF with technical assistance, including refresher training for the hospital's doctors, nurses, midwives and lab technicians, and EPHS-mandated essential pharmaceuticals.

A young NGO launched in 2003, CAF has already received $3.6 million in USAID-funded REACH grants for delivery of the BPHS. As a sub-grantee to Merlin, another REACH NGO grantee, CAF additionally provides community linkages for community midwifery training in Takhar province and trains and supervises community health workers in Badakhshan province. In August 2005, CAF received a joint Certificate of Appreciation from USAID, the Ministry of Public Health and REACH to acknowledge the excellence of its program activities.

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