An Afghan doctor has begun rebuilding his career in Australia after being forced to flee when the Taliban seized control of the strife-torn nation.

Dr Helmand Hassas managed to escape through a secretive, clandestine route operated by opponents of the Taliban.

He said he was forced into hiding when the Taliban took control of Kabul.

“After the Taliban came we had to hide. We had no other option. We could not afford to let the Taliban find us; things would have changed for the worse if they had,” Dr Hassas said.

But he and his family were helped to escape by the clandestine group operating inside Afghanistan that is secretly spiriting people targeted by the Taliban out of the country.

He did not want to reveal information about the group but gave a brief account of his family’s flight to freedom.

“After being in hiding for two months, we were told by the group we would be evacuated, but little more,” Dr Hassas said.

“Then one night, I got a call at 1.15am from the people working on the evacuation.

“We were told to go to a specific area in Kabul early the next morning. We were given a code and told to give it to the people we would meet.

“We did that and they put us in a vehicle and took us to another province and out of the country. Eventually we were flown to Greece,” he said.

Dr Hassas said he and his family were evacuated from Afghanistan on October 25, almost exactly two months after the fall of Kabul.

“I had worked with NGOs and with UNICEF as a translator mostly of documents which made us a target of the Taliban,” he said.

“Our family are all educated and my brothers and I are from a village and province where, even before the fall of Kabul, it was in the hands of the Taliban for a lot of years.

“The Taliban were saying we were working for the government and with foreigners and that we were their enemies.

“Also our land in our village was seized by the Taliban. We had no access to it while we living in Kabul and working with the government. We were deprived of the use of it. From the beginning, the Taliban were against us,” he said.

Dr Hassas graduated from the Kabul Medical University in 2006

“From that time I worked as a medical doctor in Afghanistan. I worked in a hospital and also after office hours in the late afternoon and evening in my own private clinic,” he said.

“I gained experience in hospitals between 2006 and 2021 when we were evacuated. I worked in different fields, in skin diseases, internal medicine and as a GP at my private clinic.”

De Hassas has recently connected with Australia’s health system by joining a Certificate III class in Individual Care with migrant and refugee settlement agency AMES Australia which he will complete at the end of the year.

At the same time, he has embarked on the difficult journey of qualifying as a doctor in Australia – beginning the Australian Medical Council pathway to qualification.

But it is a lengthy and expensive process.

“The cost is around $13,000 and it is impossible for me at the moment. And it will take up to 18 months,” he said.

“But I have started studying for the language test of health professionals, the OET.

“I was recommended to take on the OET study as preparation for eventually being able to start the process of getting my qualifications recognised. Here in Australia I want to serve the community and the people.

“So I was advised to take on the aged care course. It will connect me with the health sector and give me the chance of getting a job while I am on the medical registration pathway. I’ll get through the course and then decide what to do,” Dr Hassas said.       

 He is among a group of Afghan doctors who have connected in Melbourne.

“We have 30-35 doctors registered and we are sharing resources. We are hoping there might be a program to give us practical work supervised by local doctors so that we do not lose more connection with the medical field,” Dr Hassas said.