Officials of the Public Health Department in central Uruzgan province say the only Covid-19 hospital has been shut down to financial prob-lems and lack of cooperation from donors.
The 20-bed coronavirus hospital was inaugurated in Tirinkot, the provincial capital, in January 2021. Covid-19 pa-tients from all districts, includ-ing Tirinkot, were treated here.
The facility was run by the Ministry of Public Health, with assistance from SHDP and MOVE in terms of equipment and staff salaries.
Public Health Director Dr. Mohammadullah Rohani told Pajhwok Afghan News the hospital had ceased to oper-ate after the expiry of its con-tract with donors.
He said coronavirus hospitals in some other provinces were facing the same fate, but UN agencies took immediate steps and kept them in opera-tion. However, he added, the Uruzgan hospital’s fate hanged in the balance.
The director said the coronavi-rus health centre in the prov-ince was closed some time ago and all health workers sent home.
For the past one month, the official continued, there had been no centre for the treat-ment and hospitalisation of coronavirus patients in Uruzgan.
Rohani said the centre, having modern equipment, was ca-pable of diagnosing every kind of disease. But these tools have now been placed in a warehouse. Blood samples from sus-pected coronavirus patients in Uruzgan are now sent to neighbouring Kandahar prov-ince for diagnosis.
He said efforts were being made to reopen the health centre in January 2022 with the support of MoPH and do-nor agencies. He warned if the Covid-19 treatment centre in Uruzgan was not reactivated, many people would lose their lives to the disease.
A source in the Uruzgan Pub-lic Health Department, re-questing not to be named, told Pajhwok with the closure of the facility, work on a 50-bed hospital for coronavirus pa-tients had also stopped.
