Polio has become endemic in Pakistan and, according to the Lancet Medical Journal, accounts for 60% of polio cases worldwide. It is a serious and urgent threat. The director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan stated recently that a failure to eradicate polio could lead within a decade to as many as 200,000 paralyzed children a year worldwide.

In a video address on the Gates Foundation website last month, Bill Gates himself pleads with the Pakistani government to keep the fight against polio a matter of national priority.

Immunisation coverage in low and middle income countries has always been directly affected by political situations in those countries. Poorly functioning democracies, as seen in Pakistan, have skewed priorities and tend to spend less public money on information, education and communication. While this is usually due to the greed and corruption of decision makers, some areas of the country, such as the remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) inhabited by tribal Pashtuns, have historically been considered too dangerous for government workers and NGOs. This makes immunisation coverage particularly difficult. But until this year the risks to health workers have been largely imagined ones, with only a single reported death of a medic over the past decade in FATA despite steeply rising extremism and militancy.

So why has the Taliban suddenly targeted the polio program?

Since 2001, tens-of-thousands of Pakistanis that have died as a direct or indirect result of the US-led ‘War on Terror’. Pakistani military forces, as well as American unarmed predator drones, have been hitting FATA targets for the past six years, leading to a lack of trust in the Pakistani government and a deep resentment of outsiders arising from enormous anti-American sentiment. The use of lethal drone strikes in particular has had a severe impact on how local Pashtun populations view every other endeavour led by their government or foreign aid groups, even those intended to save lives, such as the polio program. Unsurprisingly, most polio cases reported so far this year were from militancy-hit areas of Pakistan, with only 13 of 44 cases from the settled areas, which have a much larger population.  A report this year by the New America Foundation claims that drone strikes may have killed more than two-thousand civilians in the north-west frontier provinces since 2004. This extrajudicial killing from the sky has, understandably, created widespread hostility to all government workers, including those in the health sector, particularly foreigners.

While the CIA drone campaign first provoked many in FATA to boycott polio vaccination, the most significant escalation of this followed the fake immunisation program created to facilitate the assassination of Osama bin Laden. To do this, the CIA enlisted the help of a real doctor, Shakil Afridi who, on the pretext of a routine vaccination campaign, sought access to the Abbottabad compound in which they believed Osama bin Laden was hiding. The doctor’s mission was to retain the needles of the fake hepatitis-B vaccination campaign for DNA testing by the CIA to determine if the children in the compound might be related to Osama bin Laden, confirming the possibility he resided in the compound. In the process, Dr. Afridi not only caused the Pakistani government considerable loss of face, but his actions in collaboration with the CIA, undermined his medical colleagues in Pakistan who have helped bring the country very close to polio eradication several years ago. Dr. Afridi acted well outside of the Hippocratic oath which doctors swear to uphold when they graduate. The oath clearly states that treatment or diagnostic tests applied to any patient should be ‘carried out only for the good of patients and not for any intentional ill-doing, abstaining from whatever is deleterious and mischievous’ (Hippocrates, 400 BCE). A real medical doctor engaging in a fake vaccination program subverts not only the trust placed in all medical practitioners, but in this case the trust Pakistani people place in those honestly committed to eradicating disease.

Complete worldwide eradication of the polio virus could well be this decade’s disease control success story were it not for Pakistan. Local militants responsible for killing the vaccine workers this week must be brought to justice. But can we really expect Pakistanis to trust our desire to help them save lives when our allies, the US, are simultaneously bombing the country and creating fake immunisation programs in order to catch their most wanted? Let us hope that ongoing negotiation between the UN, WHO and the Pakistani Government, as well as discussions between the Gates Foundation and the Taliban via Saudi intermediaries, can help to get the Pakistani polio program back on track.

 Published 22.12.12 in The Australian

Thirty years ago ambulance medics operating in the West rarely attended patients with mental health disorders. Work was mainly road trauma, fist-fights and falls, along with severe medical emergencies like cardiac arrests and strokes. Nowadays, dealing with mental health is our bread and butter. So we know a little about it. And one thing I will say as a paramedic in Australia is that I’m extremely relieved guns are not as widely owned as they are in America. I’m relieved there is less chance a firearm will end up in the hands of individuals with fragile minds.

Of course the vast majority of people with psychiatric ill-health are non-violent and pose very little threat. But this is not a rule. Just this week I treated and transported a female who felt compelled to stab her flatmate with a knife because ‘the voices told her to’. If a patient is having a mental crisis or psychotic episode, behaviour can be unpredictable. Imagine, just imagine, if patients in these moments had easy access to guns? While a knife can do some damage, it is limited by comparison. Some automatic weapons shoot a round a second; which could, potentially, kill dozens of people in under a minute.

Our thoughts have not only been with the families of the dead, but fellow first responders on the scene. For all of us medics, such a thing would be our worst conceivable nightmare. We may have tried to escape the idea that any of us could one day be involved in such a massacre by avoiding mainstream media on the shooting. But there have been some very interesting viewpoints in the alternative press worth reading, such as this one from Carlos Santana. Should you think it an over-reaction, then this from Spiegel online might convince you otherwise.

It is great to see debate on gun control raging more than even now in the US. Let’s hope it translates to actual control of weapons and removing this risk to American children.

While the film Paramedico is available to rent on-line in the A/NZ territories, we are hoping the film will screen on TV in other parts of the world first. Thus, for the time being, the film is geo-blocked outside of Australia and New Zealand. More news about when the film will be available in your area will be posted on this site when we have it.

For Worldwide Sales of Paramedico please contact:

Ouat Media, 2844 Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON, M6P 1Y7 CANADA T: +1 416 979 7380 F: +1 416 492 9539 E: info@ouatmedia.com

Screening at Hazelhurst

First up, on the day before my book is released, I do what many authors must in these tough times, and walk around London to the biggest bookshops – the Waterstones, Foyles,  Blackwells and others – saying a friendly ‘hello’ and occasionally getting more than just a disinterested ‘oh, right, yeah, author, nice’ response. One sales assistant said he’d make sure to display the book prominently. But it was hard to get any book ‘front of house’ he added, any book that wasn’t J. K. Rowling’s adult thing or Arnold Schwazenegger’s memoir that is, becasue the publishers of these pay big money to get those books in the window, even though it’s unknown paramedic authors like myself that need the window more. No, I’m not going to hyperlink J. K Rowling’s adult thing or Arnold Schwazenegger’s memoir in this blog entry, thank you very much.

While trekking London -I was almost going to trek to Waziristan with Imran but knew I wouldn’t get a visa- I decided to stop by the Southbank HQ of the London Ambulance Service where I briefly hung out with LAS medics Richard and Jim, the latter a heavily-tattooed motorcycle paramedic recovering after fracturing almost every bone in his body when he crashed his bike which promptly exploded. I felt sorry for him and gave him a book.

The HQ of HarperCollins UK is enormous and I was impressed to find my book displayed among several other new titles in the foyer. My publisher Scott Pack, who has a great blog and is the energetic gentleman who published Tom Reynold’s Blood, Sweat and Tea, invited me in. He runs an imprint of the company known as The Friday Project, because he likes to take Friday’s off work. At least that is Scott’s version. While Scott is one of the hottest names in the industry, he may have to make room for actor Johnny Depp who I’ve been told is starting his own HarperCollins imprint.

Having tea among piles of new books I was made to feel quite at home, which I always do among piles of books. That is, until Scott told me I was the only one of his authors publishing a medical memoir who did not use a pseudonym. This made me momentarily uneasy. But Scott thinks it is of great benefit that I’m using my real name because I can actually do media interviews as myself. They can get TV and radio without having to make me wear a fake moustache or curly-haired wig or speak via a voice-altering device to have me sound like Darth Vader or film me in silhouette against slightly-open venetian blinds. I think he was trying to reassure me. Though I’m not sure it worked. Later we went to dinner at a great Soho sushi joint which was yum, even though I’d just done weeks of sushi in Japan. But it took my mind off not having a pen name.

Gosh, I just stumbled on the audio book of ‘Paramedico’ released by Audible moments ago. What a crack-up! A British actor reading it with a kind-of Aussie accent. At least I think he’s trying to do an Aussie accent. You have to listen to the sample (or better, download the whole thing). I’m still laughing! Note, three weeks later: a friend did some research on the actor who is reading for my audio book and he apparently has British and Australian dual nationality. Perhaps he hasn’t put on an accent after all. Further note, five weeks later: Trevor Whittaker, the reader of my book, read the above comment on this blog and wrote to me confirming he is, in fact, an Aussie surfer from the Central Coast! How wrong I was. Seems like a top bloke. And on listening to his reading of the book again, I have totally warmed to it (and I’m not just saying this because I know Trevor will read my ‘further note’).

So I did Sky TV – wish I could link it, but I don’t subscribe – and they dusted me in make-up and told me the segment woud beam live around the world, which didn’t make me feel nervous at all. I’m lying, of course. Actually I had to go have a wee five times before I eventually sat in front of the sixteen cameras. Much less intimidating is radio. Here’s an interview I just did on BBC World Service Outlook – listen from around 8 minutes in. Also better than TV are the newspaper and internet gigs – love them, much easier. See this great gallery published by The Guardian today. And also, my five-minute-memoir for The Independent.

While in London I have also had a chance to meet up with paramedic blogger and tweeter Florian Breitenbach aka @flobach and the wonderful UK ECP Lysa Walder who used to be on the high-wire in a British circus before ‘running away to become a paramedic’ and has written some very entertaining accounts of her time in the LAS. We ate cupcakes and sipped English Breakfast Tea, naturally. For some reason we mainly talked about lecherous patients and swapped stories of being groped and hit-on, which Lysa and I have both experienced many times by male and female patients and occasionally even those of uncertain gender. Most of all I like her because she is running in a charity thing called The Zombie Evacuation, a 5km obstacle course through a forest infested with zombies. Only the fittest will survive, says the website, and it is based on the argument that people tend to run faster, and be fitter as a result, if chased by scary things.

Moving to stay with another longtime friend Sophie in Clerkenwell who manages the fabulous Lady Grey Tease - do check out this beautiful troupe - puts me in the heart of St. John territory. The grand Edwardian home is next to St. John Square, location of the Tudor St. John gatehouse, entrance to the medieval priory of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem which began in 11th Century Jerusalem. In the 12th Century the Order was given this whole part of Clerkenwell. It’s true the Knights of St. John were a bunch savage religious crusaders, but I admire them rather as pioneers of ambulancing. Walking St. John Square this morning, I discovered hidden Maltese crosses set in the cobbles, ancient winding St. John laneways, cafe’s and shops named St. John and ended up at the award-winning St. John restaurant which my wife’s uncle author St. John Green once took us too several years ago. Under the gate arches is the excellent St. John Museum. So if you’re a St. Johnophile, this is the place for you. While I’m not a St. Johnophile myself, as a teenage I was for a time in the St. John cadets which is kind of like Scouts, but with more bandages. So it was interesting browsing the exhibits and I recommend a stroll through the area if you’re in London.

Well, that’s it for my London sojourn. Everyone’s reading Paramedico here of course… Well, maybe not yet. But word of mouth takes time, right? So help me out and start talking about it!

For the second time we got a brief taste of what it must have felt like for The Beatles or Elvis arriving at gigs. Where else in the world today does one experience this kind of celebrity hysteria, thousands of people, mainly young ladies, screaming and clutching their cheeks and fainting on the assumption alone that you might be famous? Unless you’re Justin Bieber it just doesn’t happen. Except here on the red carpet in Busan, that is. And one can do little but take it slow and smile and wave and make like a star.

The ‘Paramedico’ screenings were full, mainly young Koreans, but a healthy turnout from industry folk. The Q&A at these screenings can involved numerous languages, but luckily we only had two. Still, it is no wonder it takes forty minutes with every question being asked in Korean translated into English, then my English answer translated back into Korean. Some comments were interesting too. One in particular from a man who said that in Korea, no one is allowed to learn CPR unless they have done three years of military service. It is a stark contrast to Japan where we just visited and found that every hotel, corner store and bus stop has an automated defibrillator attached to the wall. After every screening many in the audience insist I autograph their movie tickets, one of the only places in the world I have seen this kind of thing.

Now, off to London for the UK release of ‘Paramedico’. Will be there for a week. If anyone wants to meet up, drop me a mail ben@paramedico.com.au

More fun was meeting the men and women of the Japanese ambulance services who all look like manga comic characters. Seeing them in action on the streets of Tokyo is super thrilling. They speed around with helmets strapped tight and when they skid to a halt they jump out like cute little animations. Astroboys in bird-flu masks, that’s what they are. Wish now I’d done a chapter in my book on these manga medics. I did contact the service at the time, but was told the only way I could see these Japanese paramedics at work was by following them to jobs in a taxi. I mean really. What was I going to do,  jump in a cab and tell the driver ‘Quick! Follow that ambulance! Yes, through the red! Go through! Go!’ I don’t think so.

Speaking of taxis, did you know the Tokyo Ambulance Service control room has a whole team of doctors and nurses employed to convince callers they don’t need an ambulance and to give them advice and direction on how to get to hospital by other means? As a result, around 75% of all emergency calls are managed without dispatch of an ambulance. And if an ordinary taxi won’t do, operators can book a caller a ‘support cab’ which are subcontracted taxis run by drivers with current first aid certificates. Love it! And I’m not surprised. Japan has got it’s act together when it comes to life saving. Maps of the city even have the location of every public Automated External Defibrillator (AED) marked just in case we happen to come across a cardiac arrest.

Hang on, I’m on holidays! There’ll be none of that, thank you.

Sayonara for now.

In a stroke of good fortune the Germans ended up inviting the film to Berlin where we wound up hob-nobbing with the Rolling Stones, Scorsese and Penelope Cruz, a decent combination of talent to hob-nob with, in my view. Busan, evidently, is where great things begin. Just don’t wear white to Korean barbecues. Anyway, let it be known ‘Paramedico’ has been invited to Busan 2012 and I’ll be heading there with Kass. Let’s see what will come of it this time round.

Paramedico in Busan!

In the past decade, countless books have been published about the Taliban, examining its origin, ideology and goals. But few authors or experts have told us anything new. And much of what is said about this Islamic student movement and its role in Afghan politics is one-dimensional. The Taliban’s aesthetic, for instance, is almost completely absent from the current literature.

Poetry of the Taliban well and truly makes up for this shortfall. The editors are scholars who have spent considerable time among Pashtuns of Kandahar, and were responsible for the sensational biography My Life with the Taliban by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef. This time they give us a unique anthology of Taliban verse.

The notion of poetry produced by fierce and merciless men apparently opposed to singing and dancing is, at first, difficult to grasp. The title Poetry of the Taliban is bound to confound many who buy into the traditional stereotypes of our ”enemy”. But the collection is a complete surprise. The editors have compiled poetry found on the Taliban’s official website and in pamphlets or MP3 format, sometimes used in the place of ringtones. Almost all the poems in this volume are translated from the Pashto language, and include verse from the mid-’90s (when the movement first began) to the present day. While much of the world sees the Taliban as religious radicals and rigid conservatives, this anthology is full of beauty, tenderness and fine emotions laid bare. It fits well with my own experience of Afghans in Herat, where burly, bearded men in roughly tied turbans reclined by the Blue Mosque, enjoying the scent of freshly cut roses held in their hands.

So there are plenty of love poems among those with religious and nationalist themes. But the most common subject, as expected, is the suffering precipitated by conflict and the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan.

You would not ask me what happened
to the small congregation:
The grey and dusty mosque,
The one in the middle of the village,
The pretty mosque without a door.
And the tender Talib Jaan,
The one with long hair,
The young Talib Jaan,
Who used to cleanse hearts with his voice
when he called azan.

Any good intentions the international community may have for helping Afghanistan are meaningless to the Afghan man who has lost his children to the conflict, or the Afghan woman who has lost her husband.

Indeed, there are even poems from women belonging to the Taliban, such as the warrior poetess known only as Nasrat.

Give me your Turban and take my veil,
Give me the sword so that the matter will be dealt with.

Poetry distils events into simple terms. The violence with which foreign armies carry out their objectives has provided Taliban poets with fertile material for convincing Afghans that this war is about ordinary people fighting to protect their home, their faith and their simple way of life.

We love these dusty and muddy houses;
We love the dusty deserts of this country.
But the enemy has stolen their light;
We love these wounded black mountains.

Part of our reason for being in Afghanistan, we’re told, is to promote human rights by freeing the people from a harsh Taliban theocracy. But this collection is packed with outrage at the atrocities committed by the occupiers themselves. Indeed, there are frequent references throughout to the hypocrisy of the foreigners.

A flood of blood came here.
Black calamities wandered in the sky;
The young bride was killed here,
The groom and his dreams were martyred here.
A story full of love was martyred here.
But the press release from Bagram says,
‘We have killed the terrorists today.’

Already, this anthology has caused considerable controversy in Britain, where Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, accused the publishers of reproducing ”self-justifying propaganda”.

It’s easy to ignore the important role poetry and proverbs play in Afghan daily life by dismissing this book as pure propaganda. But even if it were, what is tribal poetry up against US propaganda, such as the recently screened $20 million feature film Act of Valor?

As the coalition prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, getting to know the enemy through their poetry might seem too little, too late. But Julia Gillard’s comments would indicate that Australia’s aid commitment to the country will continue long past 2013. Now is as good a time as ever to try to understand the people with whom we are dealing.

POETRY OF THE TALIBAN
Edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn
Hurst, 247pp, $31.99

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/behind-enemy-lines-20120628-213e0.html#ixzz1zSrEvaaG