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If the Afghan health system was already precarious, the arrival of the Taliban group to power overwhelmed the country’s hospital network. Lack of international funding has left most health centers without essential drugs and workers without wages; which has led to the closure of many public facilities.
The figures are chilling. Only 20% of Afghanistan’s public hospitals are functioning. Since the Taliban came to power just two months ago, some 20,000 health centers have closed in the country, according to Red Cross figures. Furthermore, of those that continue to function, two-thirds do so without access to essential medicines.
The Afghan health system is, like the entire country, largely dependent on humanitarian aid. However, the international siege in rejection of the government of the extremists has blocked the arrival of this aid, leaving most hospitals without resources.
“We have been without pay for three months. And we need him, we all need him, the doctors, the nurses, the essential workers,” Noorali Nazarzai, a doctor in Kabul, the Afghan capital, told AFP. He is one of the 20,000 health workers who either quit their job or do it without pay.
All this in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is the last concern of most Afghans, but which does not cease to exist. According to official figures, the country accumulates some 7,200 fatalities and some 156,000 cases, although it is difficult to take that number as the real sum due to the limited access of a large part of the population to health systems.
Since the arrival of the Taliban, nine of the thirty hospitals dedicated to fighting the pandemic have closed.
In addition, the vaccination campaign is non-existent: only 2.1% of the population have received a dose, while 1.8 million doses of donated vaccines are waiting to be inoculated before they expire at the end of this year, according to the complaint. WHO.
In fact, it should be remembered that the Taliban opposed polio vaccination when they ruled the country in the 1990s. That is why there is still doubt about their position regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
“The death rate of Covid-19 will grow in Afghanistan,” warns Freba Azizi, a doctor who attends the Afghan-Japanese Hospital, one of which is kept open only to treat patients with the virus. “On a daily basis we will see deaths in our communities. Without funding, we cannot give good treatment to Covid-19 patients,” he warns.
Some women continue to practice in Afghan health centers
Azizi is not only notable for her fight against the pandemic: she is a woman working under Taliban rule. And it is that, in the health field, the new Islamist rulers have had to be more flexible, especially in the hospitals run by international organizations and in the health centers of rural localities, where the women who practice are essential to continue with the operation of the installations.
An example is Hamasa Nazari, who works as a nutritionist in the hospital in the town of Day Mirdad, precisely a rural center where women take care of patients side by side with men. An anomaly in Taliban time.
“I want to keep up my fight,” explains the professional. “I will never say that I have had enough, that I will not continue working, that there are too many difficulties … No matter how many difficulties there are, I will continue to do my job as long as I have the opportunity. I will continue with my duty regardless of the situation.”
However, on the other side of the care, health for women can get drastically worse. Without going any further, the obligation of women to travel together with a man from their family is a giant barrier to their health care.
For example, the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan is 638 deaths per 100,000 deliveries, one of the highest figures in the world. But despite being a large number, it had been reduced by half since the fall of the first Taliban government. Advances that are now at risk.
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