After serving with MSF Switzerland's mission in Baharak, a town in northern Afghanistan, he returned in 2003 and helped build MSF in Norway while awaiting his next assignment. It came nearly a year later. It was Afghanistan again, this time the Badghis region in the North-west. The Dutch branch of MSF needed him to lead a local tuberculosis programme, carry out general medical duties and to train local medical staff in basic primary health clinics. By June 2004 the MSF team in Badghis had built up the polyclinic to deal with more than 1000 consultations a month. The TB programme was treating 45 patients and expanding and a mother and baby clinic had opened.