Hospitals in Crisis: Gender Restrictions Undermine Healthcare in Kabul

According to sources in Kabul, the Taliban have made working conditions and the provision of services to patients more difficult without taking into account patients’ conditions or the medical capacities of hospitals.

According to the sources, male and female patients are not admitted to the same wards, and even in sections designated for women and female doctors, male patients— even in life-threatening situations—are unable to receive assistance. Likewise, male doctors are not allowed to treat women who are in critical, life-and-death conditions in those wards.

In addition, some patients and their relatives have described the situation in government hospitals as alarming, stating that not only are patients not receiving adequate care, but hospital maintenance and cleanliness are also being neglected. The lack of facilities and unpleasant odors in medical centers have turned places that should provide comfort and healing into distressing environments.

Sources also say that the Taliban have continued to impose increasing restrictions on the country’s healthcare system, further limiting the working environment for doctors and other medical staff through various pressures. According to them, based on Taliban directives, male and female patients cannot be hospitalized in the same wards, and male and female doctors are not allowed to supervise or evaluate each other’s departments.

A doctor working at a private hospital in Kabul, identified by the pseudonym “Mursal,” said that due to the restrictions imposed by the Taliban, it is not possible to admit male and female patients in the same ward. According to her, in medical practice, each part of the body is typically treated in a specific hospital department, and patients related to that specialty are admitted there, since the necessary equipment and medical facilities are available precisely in those departments.