Kabul: Diesel fuel needed to produce oxygen for corona virus patients has run out. Therefore, dozens of essential medicines have been supplied. Unpaid workers for months still come to work, but they are struggling to make ends meet at home.
it’s plight Afghan-Japan Hospital for Communicable Diseases, Only COVID-19 Convenience for the more than 4 million people living in the capital of Kabul. While the coronavirus situation in Afghanistan has improved since cases peaked a few months ago, it is now the hospital that needs life support.
Its plight is a symptom of a crisis in Afghanistan’s health care system, which is on the verge of collapse and is only able to function with the lifeline of aid organizations.
“We face many problems here,” Dr. Ahmed Fattah Habibayari, the hospital’s administration logistics manager, citing three months’ unpaid salary, lack of equipment and medicines and food shortages.
He said that some employees are in such financial difficulties that they are making a living by selling their household furniture.
“Oxygen is a big issue for us because we can’t run the generators,” he said, adding that the hospital’s production plant hasn’t worked for months “because we can’t afford diesel.” Instead, oxygen cylinders for COVID-19 patients are procured from a local supplier.
And doctors are up for more infections that they fear are inevitable with the Omicron version.
Without outside help, “we’re not prepared for Omicron. There’s going to be a disaster here,” said the 38-year-old head of the hospital’s intensive care unit, Dr. Sherin Agha said. He said the hospital also lacked basic supplies like test gloves, and that two of its ambulances are sitting idle due to lack of fuel.
The previous government had tied up with Netherlands-based aid group Healthnet TPO to run the hospital. But the contract expired in November and was financed under a fund managed by world Bank, which, like most of the international community, has stopped payments to the new Taliban government.
Healthnet TPO program manager Willem Reising said the organization is in talks to secure funding, “but the donor community is very reluctant to continue support and has strict terms.” World Health Organization He said UNICEF was only managing to maintain minimum services and that the coronavirus response was not involved.
“The health care system is really on the verge of collapse,” Reising said. “Afghan-Japan hospital is a serious example, where we are begging donors to the extent possible to come forward and save lives.”
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August amid the withdrawal of chaotic US and NATO forces, the international community pulled all funding and froze Afghanistan’s billions of dollars in assets abroad. For a country heavily dependent on foreign aid, the results have been disastrous.
The economy was already badly troubled under the previous government, with state employees often unpaid. Last year, nearly half the population lived in poverty, worsened by pandemics and droughts, which pushed up food prices.
The Taliban government wants the international community to ease sanctions and release Afghan assets abroad so that it can pay civil servants, including doctors and teachers.
The United Nations has sounded the alarm over the hunger crisis, with 22% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people near famine and another 36% facing acute food insecurity.
“We are seeing a rapid economic collapse,” Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, said in an interview with the Associated Press last week. “It’s getting more and more terrifying by the week.”
Nowhere is this more evident than in the malnutrition ward of Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital, where anxious mothers sit with emaciated children.
Two-year-old Mohammed, with his cheeks sunken and his hair sparse, drank a cup of high-nutrition milk with his mother Parwana. From the central province of Vardak, she had been sleeping in the hospital for six nights.
“I don’t even have money to change her diapers,” said the 20-year-old. Her husband, who is a tailor, lost both legs in a roadside bomb many years ago, and has trouble sitting. The work is difficult, and Parwana says her father and brother are helping the family of three survive.
In the next bed, one and a half year old Talvasa was covered with blankets. Only her eyes were rolling behind her half-closed eyelids.
“We are in a very bad situation,” said his mother, Noor Bibi, who has six other children. Her husband can’t find work, she said, and “we eat only dry bread and don’t get food for weeks and weeks.”
Deputy Health Minister Dr. Abdul Bari Omar said last week that there are 3.5 million malnourished children in Afghanistan, although he said the data was from the previous government.
“It hasn’t happened in the last four months. Malnutrition was inherited from the previous system, but we are trying to find a solution to this problem,” he said. He said the earlier administration had also failed to address the shortage of medical equipment. ,
The children’s hospital’s deputy director, Mohammad Latif Baher, said the facility has seen 3,000 malnutrition cases in the past four months. Of them, 250 were hospitalized and the rest were treated at home.
Hospital staff are also grappling with shortages, and have not been paid for months.
“We are loyal to our motherland and our profession. So we still continue with our jobs and provide services to our patients,” Behr said, noting that they have gone without pay for five months. He said the hospital is also running low on supplies of medicines, including special food supplements for malnutrition, as well as antibiotics, analgesics and anesthetics. He said there had been some supplies from aid agencies, but more was needed.
There was a similar situation at the Wazir Mohammad Akhbar Khan National Hospital, where supplies were running short. Like most other government hospitals, its patients must buy their own medicines, with staff only dipping into emergency supplies for those who really can’t afford it.
Emergency department head nurse Ghulam Nabi Pahlavi said sometimes doctors are forced to give small doses of medicines because they don’t have enough.
But it is at the Kovid-19 hospital in Kabul where the situation seems to be most critical. Pharmacist Bilal Ahmed said that over 36 essential medicines have run out and many have expired. He said that in three months more 55 medicines would be exhausted.
“Requirements, we can’t meet them,” Ahmed said.
it’s plight Afghan-Japan Hospital for Communicable Diseases, Only COVID-19 Convenience for the more than 4 million people living in the capital of Kabul. While the coronavirus situation in Afghanistan has improved since cases peaked a few months ago, it is now the hospital that needs life support.
Its plight is a symptom of a crisis in Afghanistan’s health care system, which is on the verge of collapse and is only able to function with the lifeline of aid organizations.
“We face many problems here,” Dr. Ahmed Fattah Habibayari, the hospital’s administration logistics manager, citing three months’ unpaid salary, lack of equipment and medicines and food shortages.
He said that some employees are in such financial difficulties that they are making a living by selling their household furniture.
“Oxygen is a big issue for us because we can’t run the generators,” he said, adding that the hospital’s production plant hasn’t worked for months “because we can’t afford diesel.” Instead, oxygen cylinders for COVID-19 patients are procured from a local supplier.
And doctors are up for more infections that they fear are inevitable with the Omicron version.
Without outside help, “we’re not prepared for Omicron. There’s going to be a disaster here,” said the 38-year-old head of the hospital’s intensive care unit, Dr. Sherin Agha said. He said the hospital also lacked basic supplies like test gloves, and that two of its ambulances are sitting idle due to lack of fuel.
The previous government had tied up with Netherlands-based aid group Healthnet TPO to run the hospital. But the contract expired in November and was financed under a fund managed by world Bank, which, like most of the international community, has stopped payments to the new Taliban government.
Healthnet TPO program manager Willem Reising said the organization is in talks to secure funding, “but the donor community is very reluctant to continue support and has strict terms.” World Health Organization He said UNICEF was only managing to maintain minimum services and that the coronavirus response was not involved.
“The health care system is really on the verge of collapse,” Reising said. “Afghan-Japan hospital is a serious example, where we are begging donors to the extent possible to come forward and save lives.”
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August amid the withdrawal of chaotic US and NATO forces, the international community pulled all funding and froze Afghanistan’s billions of dollars in assets abroad. For a country heavily dependent on foreign aid, the results have been disastrous.
The economy was already badly troubled under the previous government, with state employees often unpaid. Last year, nearly half the population lived in poverty, worsened by pandemics and droughts, which pushed up food prices.
The Taliban government wants the international community to ease sanctions and release Afghan assets abroad so that it can pay civil servants, including doctors and teachers.
The United Nations has sounded the alarm over the hunger crisis, with 22% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people near famine and another 36% facing acute food insecurity.
“We are seeing a rapid economic collapse,” Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, said in an interview with the Associated Press last week. “It’s getting more and more terrifying by the week.”
Nowhere is this more evident than in the malnutrition ward of Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital, where anxious mothers sit with emaciated children.
Two-year-old Mohammed, with his cheeks sunken and his hair sparse, drank a cup of high-nutrition milk with his mother Parwana. From the central province of Vardak, she had been sleeping in the hospital for six nights.
“I don’t even have money to change her diapers,” said the 20-year-old. Her husband, who is a tailor, lost both legs in a roadside bomb many years ago, and has trouble sitting. The work is difficult, and Parwana says her father and brother are helping the family of three survive.
In the next bed, one and a half year old Talvasa was covered with blankets. Only her eyes were rolling behind her half-closed eyelids.
“We are in a very bad situation,” said his mother, Noor Bibi, who has six other children. Her husband can’t find work, she said, and “we eat only dry bread and don’t get food for weeks and weeks.”
Deputy Health Minister Dr. Abdul Bari Omar said last week that there are 3.5 million malnourished children in Afghanistan, although he said the data was from the previous government.
“It hasn’t happened in the last four months. Malnutrition was inherited from the previous system, but we are trying to find a solution to this problem,” he said. He said the earlier administration had also failed to address the shortage of medical equipment. ,
The children’s hospital’s deputy director, Mohammad Latif Baher, said the facility has seen 3,000 malnutrition cases in the past four months. Of them, 250 were hospitalized and the rest were treated at home.
Hospital staff are also grappling with shortages, and have not been paid for months.
“We are loyal to our motherland and our profession. So we still continue with our jobs and provide services to our patients,” Behr said, noting that they have gone without pay for five months. He said the hospital is also running low on supplies of medicines, including special food supplements for malnutrition, as well as antibiotics, analgesics and anesthetics. He said there had been some supplies from aid agencies, but more was needed.
There was a similar situation at the Wazir Mohammad Akhbar Khan National Hospital, where supplies were running short. Like most other government hospitals, its patients must buy their own medicines, with staff only dipping into emergency supplies for those who really can’t afford it.
Emergency department head nurse Ghulam Nabi Pahlavi said sometimes doctors are forced to give small doses of medicines because they don’t have enough.
But it is at the Kovid-19 hospital in Kabul where the situation seems to be most critical. Pharmacist Bilal Ahmed said that over 36 essential medicines have run out and many have expired. He said that in three months more 55 medicines would be exhausted.
“Requirements, we can’t meet them,” Ahmed said.
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