What will you do if your patient needs to be kept in intensive care unit (ICU), but all ICU is full of other patients, mostly afflicted with COVID-19 the same as that of yours and you either do not afford to take your patient to private hospitals or they also refuse to give you space there. What will you feel if you encounter this problem in the heart of your country’s capital?
I came into this problem just two days back and I felt embarrassed and furious. Government hospitals either do not have ICU or it is already occupied since more than five million people are believed to live in Kabul. Hospitals lack ventilators for the patients suffering from COVID-19 and the number of afflicted with the pandemic is rising on daily basis. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Public Health reported 840 new positive cases of the COVID-19, including 267 cases in Kabul. Some 19 patients afflicted with the pandemic reportedly lost their lives.  I wonder the amount of money, poured in since last year in support of aiding the COVID-19 patients, could not alleviate the problems of Kabul residents, let alone the pain and sufferings of citizens in remote provinces and districts. The government did not establish an appropriate hospital in Kabul to merely treat the patients with COVID-19. In other words, although the number of COVID-19 cases is rising on day-to-day basis and the threat is looming large as people lose their lives as a result, there is not a single hospital with enough beds, facilities and equipment in the country’s capital.  There is no transparency about the financial aid poured in for alleviating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The extensive corruption within the government has created a deep gap between the people and the government. It is unlikely to be an exaggeration to say that some 80 percent of government officials are involved in corruption in one way or another. They are involved either in taking bribes, nepotism or in abusing their positions and power. It is believed that ICU and other facilities are not provided for patients based on the just and acceptable rule of “first comes first served”, but as a normal citizen of Afghanistan, your mind will go to the issues of bribery, nepotism and abuse of power, which are rife across the country.
This week I experienced a bitter fact. My patient, as doctors said to be in critical condition and needed ICU forthwith, was suffering, and doctors, despite their recommendations to put into ICU, asked me to take it out of the certain hospital since ICU was full. I left no stone unturned and did everything in my power to find an ICU either in government hospitals or in private ones to the extent that I could afford, but all was in vain. Then, I came to realize that thousands or perhaps millions of people experience the same as I did in this country. Worst, the people in remote areas will experience far bitter facts since hospitals there lack basic facilities. I asked myself if our ventilators are still smuggled outside the country.
The second question arose in my mind was that how come the government did not establish a hospital with great capacity and facilities in a city with millions of residents for treatment of COVID-19 patients? This seems to be the tip of the iceberg in this country. Life is too cheap as tens of people lose their lives in some ways under the nose of the government.
The countries supporting Afghanistan financially for alleviation COVID-19 has to monitor their financial aid and ask the government for transparency.
I prefer countries not to support Afghanistan in cash but establish hospitals, which will alleviate corruption to some extent but not eliminate it since some officials are most likely to be involved in nepotism and abuse of power. Eliminating corruption is the responsibility of the government. It is the government to bring the corrupt officials into justice and create trust between state and nation.
I believe Afghan high-ranking officials will read this article and hope they will not ignore this problem as many others. They have to listen to the call of their conscience and render better services to the country and nation.
Adopting the posture of honest and sincere individuals and flattering the nation in the media will not mitigate the problem since actions speak louder than words. Officials have to stop giving lip services to eliminating corruption and take concrete steps in this regard.