Johnny Muir talks to Corporal Victoria Selby, who has swapped life on Ward 3X for a tour in Afghanistan.

BE it Peterborough District Hospital or the Aeromed unit at Kandahar Airfield, every one of Corporal Victoria Selby's patients is treated the same – even if they are Taliban.

Cpl Selby is one of five MOD Hospital Unit (MDHU) Peterborough personnel currently serving in Kandahar.

She told The Evening Telegraph that some patients who pass through the unit are insurgents that Nato forces are in Afghanistan to fight.

Under bolstered security measures, Taliban are brought into the airfield if they are involved in incidents with Nato forces, prior to being transported to Afghan hospitals.

"A patient is a patient," Cpl Selby, who lives in Wittering, near Stamford, said: "It is the same in the UK. They all get the same treatment."

Cpl Selby's role, along with her MDHU Peterborough colleagues, Cpl Neil Middleton, Cpl Rosalynd Tosh, Sergeant Dave Algar and Senior Aircraftman Jenny Watson, in Kandahar, is to prepare injured servicemen and women for travel back to the UK.

The Aeromed team of six nurses and six medics also take turns to travel with up to 20 patients on almost daily 16-hour flights back to the UK.

Shortly after touching down in Blighty, they jump on a return plane to Afghanistan.

In a week at the Aeromed unit at Kandahar Airfield, a grey single-storey building overlooking the runway at Kandahar Airfield with a Union flag flapping madly in the warm breeze, Cpl Selby said there could be up to seven personnel waiting to be flown back to the UK.

She said: "Unfortunately, people get injured or ill. That can mean a range of things, from developing asthma because of the dusty conditions, spraining an ankle or falling victim to an improvised explosive device (IED).

"For whatever reason, if a person can't do their job in theatre, they can't be in theatre, which means they have to go home. But we have one of the best jobs because we get to take patients home and make them better."

As well as preparing injured Britons for transit, the unit also readies Afghan nationals, many of whom are children who have been injured by IEDs, and Afghan National Army personnel, for travel, as well as forces from Denmark, Estonia and Holland.

While it is a far cry from Ward 3X at Peterborough District Hospital, where Cpl Selby works between deployments, she said she was glad of a break from the NHS.

Cpl Selby, who began a four-month tour in May, added: "Working in an NHS hospital, I find I'm not able to speak to patients in the way I would like to. Here I have the time to speak and we can spend two hours talking to a patient if we need to.

"The men often open up to us because they feel we are separate from their regiment."

Read more of Jonny's reports from Kandahar:
Our Man in Afghanistan - peterboroughtoday.co.uk/kandahar
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Staff can deploy across the world
Some 220 people from the armed forces work alongside health service staff as members of MDHU at Peterborough District Hospital treating military and civilian patients alike.

As MOD staff they are also deployed to conflict-torn territories world wide to do their bit for Queen and country, risking life and limb like other service- men.

In recent years they have been repeatedly deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for four-month stints.

The unit included consultants, supporting medical, nursing and allied health professionals, and administrative and welfare personnel.