Families step in at Kabul coronavirus ward to care for patients

The intensive care unit at the Afghan capital's premier hospital for COVID-19 patients is a medical nightmare — and a stark warning how the country’s war-ravaged health care system risks collapsing.

Family members, without protective equipment and only a few wearing face masks, help care for the patients lying in hospital beds. They say they have no choice because there are not enough nurses and other medical staff.

The next-of-kin often guard their loved one’s oxygen tank, fearing it could be stolen because there is a shortage of just about everything, including oxygen cylinders.

The 100-bed Afghan-Japan Communicable Disease Hospital in western Kabul is one of only two facilities for coronavirus testing and treatment in the Afghan capital. Newly graduated Afghan doctors have joined the 370-member staff after many of the hospital's experienced physicians walked out a few months ago, fearing the virus.

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The 92-square-meter (1,000-square-foot) ICU ward has only 13 beds, and COVID-19 patients admitted here are in critical condition; few are hooked up to ventilators, some of the others rely on oxygen tanks.

Assadullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, says he struggled to stay awake night after night at the ICU ward, guarding the tank that kept his father alive. In his father's final days, the relative of another patient came over, threatening to take the tank.

"Your father is dying but mine is alive, he told me ... in such a situation, how could I have left my father alone,” said Assadullah, who lost his father to the virus on Tuesday.

Abdul Rahman, 42, feels the same way and rushes to rub his 70-year-old mother's back every time she coughs.

A few beds away, 64-year-old Mohammad Amin's left foot has turned black from gangrene that set in after a blood clot due to the virus. His son and wife tend to him as best they can, but they say it's exhausting.

For the hospital's director, Hakimullah Saleh, every staffer is a hero, risking their own life to provide critical care. They face so many work challenges, he said, on top of which they sometimes have to deal with "threats" from distraught families who feel the hospital is not doing enough.

Associated Press