Aid agencies warn Afghanistan’s health care system is near collapse

Aid agencies are warning that Afghanistan’s health care system is near collapse after international funding to the country froze following the Taliban’s takeover of the country.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the largest medical aid agencies in Afghanistan, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) are both raising concerns regarding the stability of Afghanistan’s health care system after international donors, including the World Bank and the European Union, stopped sending funding to the country following the Taliban takeover.

“One of the great risks for the health system here is basically to collapse because of lack of support,” said Filipe Ribeiro, the MSF Afghanistan representative, according to Reuters.

“The overall health system in Afghanistan is understaffed, under-equipped and underfunded, for years. And the great risk is that this underfunding will continue over time,” he added.

Necephor Mghendi, the Afghanistan head of IFRC, said the country’s already fragile health care system, which leaned heavily on foreign aid, is now under additional strain.

“The humanitarian needs on the ground are massive,” he said, according to Reuters.

Both MSF and IFRC said that while their operations on the ground were broadly left unchanged, they observed a large increase in demand because other facilities were not able to fully function.

Mghendi said that humanitarian agencies were not able to access funds because Afghan banks were closed, which left vendors and staff unpaid, according to the news wire.

“Supplies that were supposed to last for three months will not be able to last three months. We may need to replenish much earlier than that,” he said.

Ribeiro said that while MSF accumulated medical supplies in Afghanistan prior to the takeover, information regarding when more equipment may reach the country is unknown because the Taliban takeover caused chaos for flights and land borders.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Office for the Eastern Mediterranean on Sunday requested “immediate and unimpeded access” to send medical supplies to Afghanistan by an air bridge because commercial flights are not running in Kabul.

The WHO, however, did see some success on Monday when it completed its first shipment of medicine and other supplies to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.

Those supplies include trauma and emergency kits, which can help roughly 200,000 Afghan children in need and provide 3,500 surgical procedures to help 6,500 trauma patients, according to Reuters.