Badakhshan’s remote areas lack access to health services

FAIZABAD (Pajhwok): Residents of 20 remote and inaccessible villages in 13 districts of northeastern Badakhshan province lack access to health services.

The residents say having access to health services and facilities in their areas remains a dream.

Zikrullah, 54, a resident of Pelar village of Jurm district, whose one leg paralyzed due to a gunshot, said he would not have lost his leg if there had been health facility in their village.

He said one of his friends mistakenly shot him in the leg and he was taken to the health center in Jurm district center on a donkey, but it took 24 hours to reach there.

He recalled doctors found out that the blood circulation from his leg had been cut, so they amputated his leg.

He continued: “I became a disabled, many women have died during childbirths. I wish no one, especially pregnant women, do not go through such bitter experience in seeing a doctor”.

He asked the leadership of the Islamic Emirate and the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a health center in their area and turn their dream into reality.

Mullah Yar Mohammad, 50, a resident of Dashti Ghurmai area in Yamgan district, told Pajhwok Afghan News that lack of health services was a serious issue in the district and there was no ambulance service.

He called on the government to appoint well-trained doctors in the province health centers and provide necessary facilities in their district, which was more than 100 kilometers away from the provincial capital, Faizabad.

QariAtiqullahFaizi, Badakhshan public health director, confirmed residents of remote and inaccessible villages could not access health services during different seasons of the year.

He added: “The residents of Pelar, Koj Gaka, Dara Khel and Arkhu villages of Jurm district, Sanglich of Darwaz, Karak and Khel Asp of Tagab, Eskasp, AbYamak and Robaghan of Kiran Wa Minjan, NahiaChaharum, DehKalan, DehShahidan of  Faizabad city, Andarab in Arghanj Khwa, KuhnaBatashQaraMughul in Argu, Ahmad in Raghistan, Ghulamal in Wakhan, AbZmuch in Yawan districts have wrote to the provincial Public Health Department and requested the establishment of health centers and more activities of health institutions in their localities”.

Faizi said there were more than 15 health centers in remote and inaccessible areas of Badakhshan province and some of them were newly established and some upgraded.

He said the national budget awaited approval from the supreme leader and works on postponed health centers would resume once the budget was approved in order to solve people’s problems.

The officials said currently in areas where no health centers existed, mobile health teams were operating there.

aw/ma

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