February 2016—Maryam Abbasi is a receptionist at Sehat Hospital, a private facility in the western city of Herat, Afghanistan. She used to feel overwhelmed trying to address patients’ needs and said she didn’t know how to properly do her job.

Dr. Zubair Arshad, director of the Private Clinics Association of Herat, wasn’t surprised. Afghanistan’s health care system relies heavily on the services of private hospitals and health clinics. Until the fall of the Taliban regime, the health sector relied completely on government-owned hospitals and clinics. Today, 73 percent of health care spending is done through the private sector.

“Private clinics and hospitals are new in Afghanistan,” said Arshad. “When they hire someone in charge of registration or consultation, the briefing provided is not complete.”   

So Arshad asked a USAID-supported NGO, Green Wish for Afghanistan Educational and Service Organization, to provide communications training for hospital staff through USAID’s Afghanistan Workforce Development Program. The training took place in May and June 2015.

The program addresses the market demand in the private sector by providing Afghan workers like Abbasi the required skills to do their jobs more effectively, and increase their wages and professional development.

Training under the program has also allowed doctors to spend more time instructing medical students and less time instructing staff on administrative procedures (see related story, Afghan Hospital Trains Administrative Staff, Lifts Burden from Doctors).

The training had a dramatic impact on Abbasi and her work. With three years of experience working at the hospital, she not only had her salary raised, but the program improved her work environment.

“The hospital communications training positively affected my work situation,” said Abbasi. “It helped me increase my patience and reduced my tiredness. Now I can easily establish communication with patients where I could not do that before.”

The Afghanistan Workforce Development Program has trained around 27,000 men and women across six major cities in Afghanistan, and has placed or promoted—with at least 3 percent salary increases—more than 17,700 skilled workers. Of those trained, placed and promoted, 36 percent are women.

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