KABUL, Afghanistan - With scrounged, cast-off heart-testing machines and boundless optimism, an Afghan-Canadian cardiologist has managed a remarkable feat -- setting up Afghanistan's first free academic cardiac clinic.

The Ali Abad Cardiac Research Centre is a tiny but important step forward for health care in a country where the vast majority of the population either cannot afford treatment or have to pay dearly to travel abroad to get it.

Dr. Asmat Naebkhil, 48, graduated from the University of Kabul medical school in the 1970s, but has spent most of the past two decades working in hospitals across Canada, most recently at Windsor Regional Hospital in Windsor, Ont.

For several years, with the help of his local Rotary Club, he scrounged used diagnostic machines, storing them in a warehouse for shipment to Afghanistan.

A call from the medical school's chancellor last year persuaded him to come set up the facility in a disused female dormitory.

"This is a different Afghanistan now -- much different," Naebkhil said. "I can put on my tie at least, I can wear a lab coat."

He intended to stay just a month. That was in June.

With colleagues and students gathered around him, they opened the boxes of equipment. No one, it seemed, knew how to use them, so they asked him to stay.

The medical school offered him $65 a month -- the most it could afford -- and he agreed.

"We have to sacrifice something," he said.

Today, the centre has the appearance of a reasonably modern cardiac-care facility.

Naebkhil happily shows off the stress, blood-testing and other diagnostic machines -- even proudly pointing out a modern washing machine.

Almost all of it is from Windsor or Detroit, he said.

The clinic sees up to 15 patients a day -- no one is turned away.

Now Naebkhil has set his sights on operating rooms for open-heart surgery to complement the diagnostics the clinic can now do.

It also has no way yet of doing invasive procedures such as angioplasty.

Naebkhil is hoping to find equipment for those, and has already designated the second storey as their future home. The third floor will one day house operating theatres.

All it will take to get going is more used equipment, he said.

For those who need heart surgery urgently, he has an arrangement with a surgeon in Pakistan who will operate -- provided the patients can find the $200 they need for catheters or replacement heart valves.

It's still a far cry from the $6,000 or $7,000 such surgeries would normally cost.

Apart from equipment, the clinic is also struggling to find even a single female nurse, but the $65-a-month salary can't compete with private and non-governmental organizations who can easily pay five or 10 times the money.

Naebkhil has reached out to other Afghan medical expatriates, trying to persuade them to come back and help the health system onto its feet.

Gradually a team is coming together.

"When I feel there are enough people to run this place, I will go back to Canada," he said.