War sharpens suffering in Kabul's hard-up hospitals

By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan – It's not yet noon, and already the electricity has been cut off. The corridors of the Children's Hospital in Kabul are dark and dank. There are no bright pictures on the walls, or music and games to distract the young, pain-ridden patients.

There used to be 400 patients at the 300-bed hospital, says its administrator, Mullah Ruhollah Rahim. Sometimes there would be two or three children to a bed, he said.

But when the U.S.-led air assault began three weeks ago, all those who could left the hospital, which is surrounded by Taliban military installations.

The Pentagon says it is not targeting civilians and regrets any deaths, but the hospital, many patients and their families aren't taking any chances.

The hospital in Afghanistan, a poor and isolated country where the per capita income in a good year runs about $200, is spartan. There are six beds to a room. Bedsheets, when there are any, are soiled and torn. Beneath the sheets, mattress stuffing pokes through holes.

Windows are missing in some rooms, letting the cold autumn wind whistle through chilly wards.

Beside 10-year-old Maria's bed are two discarded plastic needle wrappers, some dirty tissue and old rice from an earlier meal. She ducks her head, hiding her face. Her hand is in a bloodstained sling hanging from a rusty steel pole.

Her father, standing nearby, describes how she was injured – falling from a second-story window during an airstrike.

"She was playing on the window – she knows better," he says with a hint of reproach. "Then a bomb came. It shook the house and she got scared and she fell out."

Since the airstrikes began Oct. 7, Rahim said 29 children have been brought to his hospital with injuries, some serious.

The hospital was in desperate straits even before the air campaign began. It didn't have enough medicine, the heating system didn't work, its 30-year-old incubators were unusable. There was no government money, doctors were poorly trained and equipment didn't work.

Today it's even worse.

Now, the government shuts off the power at night because of the bombing. It's off during the day sometimes as well, as it was on Sunday.

"We have two generators but no money for the diesel for one," said a doctor, Abdul Rahimzai. At times, surgery is postponed for lack of power, he said.

At other times, operations have been performed by the light of candles and kerosene lamps. It's hard to find staff who can hold them steady long enough, he says.

There are no expatriate workers from international aid organizations still in Kabul. All foreigners were told to leave before the airstrikes began. But relief groups try to get medical supplies into the country to be distributed by their Afghan staff.

With the hospital short of drugs, patients have to buy what medicine they need from the market. Anesthesia is used for only the most serious cases, Rahimzai said.

Bibi Jan, a woman in her 70s, cried softly beside her 12-year-old grandson, whose head was wrapped in bandages. The boy, Tori Elahi, was on his way to school when an airstrike sprayed shrapnel around him.

Lying in bed, he suddenly vomits. There are no basins, and no nurses about. No one comes to help. His grandmother looks around pleadingly, then props the boy on his side and wipes his mouth.

Mohammed Salam, 10, looks up with big, brown tear-filled eyes as the doctor moves the soiled blanket that covers his lower body.

His right foot has been amputated. The other leg is injured, and he is in danger of losing it, his doctor says.

"We have been waiting to see if we can save it, but I don't know – I don't think so," the doctor says.

Asked what happened to him, Salam says in a voice that is barely a whisper: "I was asleep. A bomb fell on my foot. I was crying. It was pain for me." The doctor said his foot was ripped off by shrapnel.

As the afternoon winds down and the light begins to fade, an old man in a frayed gray sweater two sizes too big walks by with kerosene-fired lanterns in both hands.

Behind him, another old man looks up with a toothless grin. "Asalam-o-walaikam" – God be with you, he says as they make their way slowly down the hallway past broken wooden chairs and an elderly woman sweeping the floor.

APNP-10-28-01 1538CST