It took just 72 hours for Aspen Medical to set up a comprehensive clinic to support fleeing Afghan nationals after the Taliban overran Afghanistan in August 2021. The chaotic mass evacuation known as the Kabul Airlift began within days of the Taliban takeover, and the Australian department of foreign affairs (DFAT) contracted Aspen Medical to set up the clinic for Afghan evacuees. Three days later it was up and running, fully staffed and equipped.
Established at Al Minhad airbase near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Aspen Medical facility had consultation rooms, observation rooms, full resuscitation capability, and a pharmacy. It was staffed with ten doctors, 22 nurses, a paramedic, a pathology technician, logistics personnel and a driver. More than 700 Afghans, including children younger than five, were given medical support over 19 days in the joint evacuation operation by the Australian Defence Force, DFAT, and Aspen Medical.
“I think from an industry or a private sector perspective, no one can operationalise a health service like we can,” says Aspen Medical chief medical officer Dr Katrina Sanders, adding that this entails developing a health plan, allocating relevant resources, organising transport and logistics, and deploying a team to deliver the health services.
“We’ve delivered health services across Australia and globally in a number of areas, but our focus has certainly been delivery of health services in conflict zones and fragile states and disease outbreaks,” Sanders says.
Aspen Medical has deployed medical staff all over the world for 22 years, supporting the Australian Defence Force in the Solomon Islands, East Timor, in the Gulf region, and at defence bases and remote training locations across Australia.
“We have a field hospital in Haiti; we have a hospital in Mogadishu, in Somalia, supporting the United Nations,” Sanders says. “We’ve got a team in Ukraine.” This team, she adds, is working with partners to train rehabilitation specialists in the use of prosthetics.
The company also operates two tertiary hospitals in Fiji and a general practice clinic in Port Moresby’s CBD. In 2016-17, during the battle for Mosul in Iraq, Aspen Medical was contracted by the United Nations to run a trauma field hospital and maternity unit in the beleaguered city – subsequently followed by a further two field hospitals.
A veteran herself, Sanders says the company has strong and long-held links with the Australian Defence Force and many Aspen Medical staff members are veterans with an inherent understanding of military priorities and protocol.
“We’ve got a long history of providing services to the ADF. I think we have good, strong relationships,” she says. “We have an inherent understanding of command and control and of operational environments, and so we become a trusted partner. Although we are a contracted provider, we work in deep engagement and deep partnership with the ADF in those environments.”
Aspen Medical’s role is one of support, Sanders says. “We would never be front line in a conflict zone or first on the ground like ADF would, but we certainly see ourselves as a capability that could provide additional and complementary services, or even second wave services.”
The company provides support for ADF exercises in-country as well as internationally, and also provides training on medical equipment. Aspen Medical has a role in the ADF’s JP2060 deployable healthcare project. “It’s a new field deployable hospital project that the ADF is rolling out, and we do the training on all the hospital equipment,” Sanders says.
The company has a core workforce of personnel in operations, clinical and administrative categories for Aspen’s day-to-day operations as well as a thousands-strong “surge workforce” of clinicians all over the world. They can be called on at any time – when the ADF, the United Nations or the World Health Organisation (WHO) need healthcare professionals and deployable health infrastructure. Aspen Medical is accredited by the WHO as an emergency and medical operation, Sanders says.
“Because of our culture and because of our strong veteran theme and the type of work we do, the people we attract to our organisation like that model of work,” Sanders adds. “They like the surge model. They like the concept of deploying it at short notice, and they often move around multiple projects and stay with us for a long time.”
On-call healthcare professionals include a full range, from midwives to dentists to mental health practitioners, from paramedics to primary healthcare through to tertiary care services. The company also has a virtual health capability and a training arm.
Aspen Medical prides itself on its ability to integrate locally and build capability in zones of varying complexity around the world, Sanders says. “We’re not the company that will deploy 1000 expatriates into another country. That’s not how we operate. We’re very much about integration; integration with local and existing capability.”