Kabul Nov. 1 (BNA): The Taliban-appointed supervisor of a small local hospital outside the Afghan capital has big plans for the place – much to the chagrin of the doctors who work there.
Mohammad Javid Ahmadi, 22, was asked by his superiors, who was newly out of the battlefields from a war that lasted most of his life, what kind of jobs he could do. Positions were offered in a range of ministries and institutions now under Taliban control after they seized power in August and collapsed the previous government.
Ahmadi’s dream was to become a doctor. He said that poverty prevented him from attending medical school. Choose the health sector. Soon, the Mirpasha Kot District Hospital outside Kabul became his responsibility, the Associated Press reported.
“If someone with more experience could take this position, it would be better,” he said, “but unfortunately if someone (like this) gets this position, you will see after a while that he may be a thief or a corrupt person,” he said, referring to the problem of the previous government.
It’s a job that Ahmadi takes very seriously, but he and the other health workers rarely meet at the 20-bed hospital. Doctors are demanding back payments amid acute shortages of medicine, fuel and food. Al Ahmadi’s first priority is to build a mosque within hospital departments, separate staff by gender and encourage them to pray. He tells them that the rest will follow God’s will.
The drama at Mirbacha Kot has begun throughout Afghanistan’s health sector since the Taliban seized power. With power changing overnight, health workers have had to deal with a difficult adjustment. The set of problems that preceded the rise of the Taliban exacerbated.
The United States froze Afghan assets in American accounts shortly after the acquisition, in line with international sanctions, crippling the banking sector in Afghanistan. International monetary organizations that had been financing 75% of state expenditures temporarily halted payments, precipitating an economic crisis in the aid-dependent country.
The Taliban’s deputy health minister, Abdul Bari Omar, said the medical facilities, including the salaries of health workers.
Wages were not paid for months before the government collapsed.
“This is the biggest challenge for us. When we came here there was no money left,” Omar said. There is no salary for the staff, no food, no fuel for ambulances and other machines. There is no medicine for the hospitals. We tried to find some from Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. and Pakistan, but this is not enough.”
In Marbacha Cote, doctors have not been paid for five months.
Frustrated staff continue to care for up to 400 patients a day, who come from the six neighboring districts. Some have general complaints or heart problems. Others bring sick children.
‘What can we do? If we don’t want to come here, there is no other job for us. If there is another job, no one can pay us. “You’d better stay here,” said Dr. Gul Nazar.
The first order of the day is the registration book. Ahmadi wants every doctor to sign in and out. It’s a formality that most health professionals are preoccupied with, but neglecting it is enough to irritate Ahmadi.
Two: the mosque.
The workers come to the hospital to take measurements for the project and Al Ahmadi issues orders to them.
“We are Muslims and we have 32 employees, and for them we need a mosque,” he said.
He added that there are many benefits. Relatives can stay with patients overnight and sleep in the mosque, as the hospital lacks extra beds especially during the winter months. “This is what is most needed,” he said.
Dr. Najla Qomi looked puzzled.
She, too, has not been paid in months and routinely complains of a lack of medication in the maternity ward. They do not have analgesic medication for expectant mothers.
The pharmacy is full of painkillers and only some antibiotics. I asked: Is this the time of the mosque?
But Ahmadi said it is the responsibility of NGOs to resume their aid programs to fund the shortfall. The mosque’s money will come from local donations.
His arrival led to other drastic changes.
Men and women were asked to stay in separate wards. Female doctors are not allowed to go to the emergency room. Ahmadi told them to wear a headscarf and focus on the female patients.
“We can’t go to the other side of the hospital. He told us that the woman is a woman and the man is a man,” said Dr. Ilha Al-Ibrahimi, 27.
Because of the shortage, doctors advise patients to find the drugs elsewhere and come back. Brahimi said Ahmadi often scrutinizes her recipes.
“He’s not a doctor,” he said, “we don’t know why he’s here, we ask ourselves this all the time.”
But Ahmadi is quick to claim that there was deep-rooted corruption in the hospital under the former hospital director, his predecessor from the previous government.
He said he was horrified to discover an entire warehouse full of medical equipment, furniture and other stolen goods to sell in the market for personal gain. He could not provide proof that this was the intention of the previous official.
He sees his job as meticulously ensuring that never happens again, echoing the Taliban’s broader goals for the nation.
Doctors are routinely attacked by angry patients, most of whom cannot pay for life-saving drugs. “They are all fighting with us,” said Brahimi.
Staff who work the night shift say there is no food. Power shuts off for hours a day as the generator quickly runs out of fuel.
Quami holds a mobile phone to light as she makes her way to check on malnourished children.
“Every doctor here is deeply depressed,” she said.
By contrast, Ahmadi said his dreams had finally come true.
Working in a hospital made possible something that a life growing up poor couldn’t: medical education.
He claims that in the past two months he has learned how to give injections and prescribe essential medications. He said that’s part of the reason he scrutinizes Brahimi’s recipes.
“I know the names of the medicines needed for different conditions,” he said proudly. He added that recently, after he had a traffic accident, he was at the scene of the accident to give an injection of painkillers.
Ahmadi still dreams of becoming a doctor, and like the health workers he supervises, he hopes the money will come somehow.
RAE