Key department heads, nursing supervisors and core planning members of the Balkh Hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Health in Kabul are presently taking part in a nine day German hospital study tour to view functions and work flows of comparatively sized German hospitals. The study tour includes visits to four German Hospitals in Füssen, Kaufbeuren, Bamberg and Nuremberg as well as workshops reviewing technical, functional and administrative concerns of real-time hospital management.

Balkh hospital was destroyed by fire in 2006 and is currently being reconstructed to serve as the main referral and teaching hospital for all of Northern Afghanistan. The reconstruction project is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) through the German KfW Entwicklungsbank, and implemented by a consortium led by EPOS Health Management. The German hospital study tour is a capacity building initiative in preparation of the new Balkh hospital’s pending startup which is planned for autumn 2011.