Northwest Medical Teams Portland headquarters. (AP Photo)

NW Medical Sends Volunteers to Afghanistan

December 14, 2001, 01:00 PM

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By AP Staff

A team of volunteer doctors and nurses from the Portland-based aid organization Northwest Medical Teams was to leave for northern Afghanistan on Friday to bring medical supplies to refugees there.

Two doctors and a nurse practitioner will carry 70 pounds of medical supplies apiece and will try to cross the Uzbek border into Afghanistan on Wednesday, said Barbara Agnew, the group's spokeswoman.

From there, they will travel to Mazar-e-Shariff, where only 30 percent of the city has electricity and hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, she said.

"The doctors that are there are terribly overworked, so we're going to be coming alongside them ... and then we'll be going out to refugee camps that encircle the city," Agnew said.

A $350,000 shipment of medical supplies that was tentatively scheduled to leave for Kabul on Dec. 26 is still up in the air, Agnew said.

The Kabul airport may not be able to accommodate the cargo plane and group members still aren't sure how they will transport the supplies once they arrive, she said.

"It's still a fairly uncertain and insecure situation," she said.

Agnew said the airlift also could instead land in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or delay the trip until mid-January.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)