Only COVID-19 facility in Afghanistan’s capital in crisis amid dire economic downturn: report

The only COVID-19 facility for over 4 million people in Kabul is struggling with a lack of supplies and funding to properly serve its patients, The Associated Press reported.

Even as COVID-19 cases in Afghanistan are down from their peak a few months ago, the country’s hospital system is nearing collapse as it survives solely with the help of aid groups, according to the AP. 

“We face many problems here,” Dr. Ahmad Fatah Habibyar, the hospital’s administration logistics manager, said, per the AP. 

The Afghan-Japan Hospital has run out of diesel fuel required to produce oxygen for COVID-19 patients and lacks other supplies, including drugs, equipment and food, the AP reported.

“Oxygen is a big issue for us because we can’t run the generators,” Habibyar said, adding that the hospital could not “afford the diesel.”

Staffers at the hospital have also not been paid for months, but are continuing to show up for work, according to the AP.

 “The health care system … is really on the brink of collapsing,” HealthNet TPO program manager Willem Reussing said, per the AP. “The Afghan-Japan Hospital is a dire example, where we are nearly begging donors to step in and save lives.”

Dr. Shereen Agha, who runs the hospital’s intensive care unit added that “we are not ready for omicron.”

“A disaster will be here,” Agha said, according to the AP.  

Under Afghanistan’s previous government, a Netherlands-based group, HealthNet TPO, ran the hospital. However, that contract ran out in November, per the AP. It was also previously financed through the World Bank, which has since frozen payments to the Taliban leadership, according to the wire service.

Many other international entities similarly froze aid and Afghan assets following the Taliban’s takeover of the country in August. 

In addition to health concerns, Afghanistan is also facing broader economic and humanitarian crises.

In an October report, the United Nations’s World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization found that nearly half of the country’s population — almost 19 million people — faced high levels of acute food insecurity between September and October.

In November, the United Nations envoy for Afghanistan warned that the country was on the brink of “humanitarian catastrophe.”