Once US author George William Curtis said that happiness lies first of all in health. Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, influenced by social and economic conditions similarly as health policies. Afghanistan has one among the foremost precarious healthcare systems within the world. Due to decades of ongoing conflict, the life expectancy has been left just 42 years, and therefore the country trails most of the planet in just about all health indicators. Afghanistan’s health system has been slowly advancing over the last 17 years, with increasing coverage of health services across the country.
In 2018, a complete of 3,135 health facilities were functional, which ensured access to almost 87 percent of the population within two hours’ distance. There are five policy areas involving governance, institutional development, public health, health services and human resources of Afghanistan’s National Health Policy 2015-20. The recently developed One UN strategy focuses on Health System Strengthening among other health topics. WHO and UN agencies were helping the government implement the National Health Policy 2015-20 and Strategy 2016-2020. However, it was problemtic meeting UN SDGs 3 (towards health for al) and 16 (towards justice and peace), approaches to guard and maintain health care services in armed conflict.
Afghanistan has one of the world’s lowest per capita ratios of physicians (30 every 100,000 people), and therefore the same goes for hospital beds (40 per 100,000 people), and nurses (20 per 100,000 people). This is often far below the ratio of other South Asian countries, which still rank among the very lowest in development levels globally.
The Afghan economy isn’t strong enough to supply the Health Ministry with the funds and resources needed to support a reliable and widespread healthcare system. So far, the government has been dependent heavily on international aid to support and build its healthcare infrastructure. Before the Taliban, NGOs were often subcontracted to supply care, train local staff, and build hospitals round the country.
There’s also danger of cases of measles and diarrhoea ramping up, and polio becoming a “major risk”. According to the WHO, the covid-19 response has also declined and almost half the country’s children are in danger of malnutrition. Firstly, the World Food Programme and UNICEF can rescale their aid to the country, with new mobile health and nutrition teams. Secondly, International organisations and world leaders can help Afghans to survive as food is running out and by fast-track funding can prevent avoidable deaths, displacement and may reduce suffering. Thirdly, Taliban must strengthen international humanitarian law compliance and must prioritise humanity specially
According to the Red Cross, over 2000 health facilities closed in the conflict-ravaged country after the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan’s health system is on the brink of collapse. People might agree to work without salaries only for some time. 20,000 medical experts within the country were now not working, or were working without being paid, over 7000 of them women.
Afghanistan faces an imminent humanitarian catastrophe. Implementing the UN principles of neutrality and independence, WHO engaged in constructive dialogue to deal with differences and find solutions that would allow it to continue life-saving work for a lot of innocent Afghans including children and women littered with decades of conflict.
Sehetmandi, the country’s largest health project with thousands of health facilities, owing to cuts in donor aid, has suffered a lot due to shortage of medical supplies. Many of those facilities have now reduced operations or been finished off, forcing health providers to make hard decisions on who to save and who to let die. Sehatmandi health facilities are functional only up to 17 percent . This breakdown in health services has a knock-on effect in regards to basic and essential supply of health care, as also on emergency response. Nine of 37 covid-19 hospitals have already closed, and every single aspect of the covid-19 response has dropped, including surveillance, testing, and vaccination.
The UN released $45 million emergency funds to assist and prevent Afghanistan’s battered healthcare system. People across the country are often denied access to primary health care like emergency caesarian sections and trauma care. The world must determine to help the people of Afghanistan in their hour of need. Workers of different NGOs are scared of the new regime, and they have to face the music because of cooperation with western organisations for the provision of basic health facilities to Afghans. Borders have far-reaching repercussions and it doesn’t matter on which side of a border we exist. People are fleeing from Afghanistan. This drain would not only be prove a brain drain, but other than that risks eliminating the essentials of all rudimentary systems of society, like education, justice, and— especially troubling, given the continued pandemic— healthcare.
The million dollar question is now “Can the Taliban sustain a healthcare system”?
The USA froze the country’s assets. The World Bank and IMF have suspended aid to Afghanistan so that the Taliban don’t have a chance to run the affairs, whether in a good or bad way.
The Taliban has given some preliminary indications that they intend to retain a minimum of a number of the apparatuses of the previous government’s Ministry of Health, which might reduce to a minimum the expected chaos which will be following the onset of a regime with no experience of running a system. This might also make it more likely that international aid for health care may be reinstated— though the volatile situation doesn’t lend itself to accurate forecasting. Even so, international humanitarian organisations are willing to continue their services for Afghans. But their personnel, especially those that are local or female, are petrified of becoming a target of the Taliban, thanks to their past tarnished image. Many are attempting to flee from Afghanistan, and at a minimum they need evidence that the Taliban’s statements on guaranteeing human rights aren’t hollow. This exodus-turned-crisis has pushed up the amount of displaced people and conflict victims, increasing the necessity for emergency medical services as disturbances continue in various areas of the country.
There’s also danger of cases of measles and diarrhoea ramping up, and polio becoming a “major risk”. According to the WHO, the covid-19 response has also declined and almost half the country’s children are in danger of malnutrition. Firstly, the World Food Programme and UNICEF can rescale their aid to the country, with new mobile health and nutrition teams. Secondly, International organisations and world leaders can help Afghans to survive as food is running out and by fast-track funding can prevent avoidable deaths, displacement and may reduce suffering. Thirdly, Taliban must strengthen international humanitarian law compliance and must prioritise humanity specially.
