The brutal humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan for some months has led to its sanitary system to operate in extreme conditions and both doctors and cleaning workers to work without salary any. The conditions in which a large part of the population of this country (39 million inhabitants) find themselves has forced them to live in a emergency constant and face daily the battle For surviving.
In this environment, hospitals in Afghanistan they are collapsed by demand and exceeded in their ability to provide care to those who need it; for which dozens of kids that arrive to receive attendance die of starvation in the same health centers, where doctors can do little or nothing in the face of the terrible food crisis that Afghans go through.
As if this weren’t enough, the rooms of attention in hospitals They are full of women who want to be cared for, many of them come to give birth, however, the demand has tripled in a few months to date. The patients, many of them adolescents, face severe malnutrition, and they do not have enough milk in their breasts to feed their babies.
Mother begs for her and her baby to be killed!
One of the experiences The most heartbreaking was shared by Dr. Nuri (not her real name), for the “BBC”, after she described how a mother who had come to start a caesarean section in a hospital located in the center of Afghanistan, ended up begging to kill her and her baby: “I do not know how I can stay alive ‘, said the mother,’ how can I give birth to another human being?”, Quoted the obstetrician.
The reason? Patients arriving in the ward maternity they are extremely undernourished and weak; faced with the large influx of mothers waiting to give birth, the care rooms they are overflowing; Doctors have to squeeze women who are in labor against the bloodstained walls or tending them lying on dirty sheets, and even these areas are so crowded that sometimes there are several women settled in a single bed, something hopeless.
Dr. Nuri told the British media that other health centers located in the vicinity had to close, while the hospital in which she works, previously prestigious and modern, is working to the limit, with three women patients more than before and with doctors and cleaning workers working without receiving a salary for months. “Room maternity It is one of the happiest wards in any hospital, but that no longer happens in Afghanistan“, he recounted.
Children die of hunger in hospitals in Afghanistan
The obstetrician reported that in addition deaths of minors due to starvation they are on the rise, given the impotence of health workers; stated that in September alone, in two weeks he saw five starvation newborn babies. The reasons are diverse, but there is no doubt that Afghanistan was recovering from a severe drought and decades of conflictHowever, the coming to power of the Taliban last August precipitated the country’s descent into the economic collapse.
From that moment on, international aid, which sustained Afghanistan’s economy and health system for decades, stopped coming. The reason? Western donors show serious concerns about the transfer of financial help through a government that denies basic rights to women and girls, in addition to threatening them with severe punishments When applying Sharia, the islamic law that governs the country.
According to figures from the United Nations (UN) Afghanistan faces its worst hunger crisis since records began, with around 14 million expected kids suffer from acute levels of malnutrition this winter. This has led to hospitals that treat people and children suffering from malnutrition are on the verge of collapse, in addition to at least 2,300 health facilities Health they have already been closed across the country.
The worst famine in decades
In remote areas, doctors have made it known that they cannot provide basic medications, even something as simple as acetaminophen, for the seriously ill who have walked 12 hours to seek treatment. While in Kabul, the Afghan capital, one of the most important children’s hospitals is facing one of the worst attacks of the famine, which has brought it to work at 150% of its capacity.
Dr. Siddiqi, direct from this hospital, he told the “BBC” how last September he witnessed an increase in the number of deaths at the medical center, right after the relief funds. He witnessed how up to four children under the age of 10 died each week due to malnutrition or diseases related, such as poisoning from poor food hygiene.
Most of the minors five-year-olds are too late to be saved, he said: “These children are dying before being admitted … We lose many cases like this.” For Dr. Siddiqi, the youngest are the ones who have to face the brunt of the health crisis. Those who manage to save face another challenge, as the hospital they don’t have the resources to help them keep going.
East hospital suffers from severe food shortages and medicinesIn addition, keeping patients warm is quite a challenge in winter, as there is no fuel for central heating, which is why Dr. Siddiqi now asks the personal of the hospital that cuts and collects dry branches of the trees daily, with the aim of feeding the wood stoves that provide heat to the patients.
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