Officials at the government hospital in Kabul said that they are facing a shortage of specialist doctors and equipment.

“We need machinery for examinations, which is not available in our hospital, like MRI, but this service is not available in our hospital,” said Mohammad Iqbal Sediqi, deputy head of the Children's Health Hospital.

The emergency section of this hospital only has ten beds for patients and for this reason most of the time patients do not receive emergency services, a doctor said.

“Patients come here with an emergency situation but due to a shortage of beds we can’t take care of all patients,” said Abdul Khaliq Elyas, a doctor.

Two-year-old Shegufe has been suffering from measles and she is now hospitalized in the emergency unit.

“We keep the patient in the emergency unit for five days and after their health becomes better, we transfer the patient to another unit,” said Dawlat Hussain Afzali, Shegufeh's physician.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health said that efforts to increase human and technical capacities in hospitals are continuing.

“The Ministry of Public Health has worked for all units in the last year. We bring the machines for electroscope surgery, which was not in government hospitals before. It has been activated in some hospitals,” said Sharafat Zaman, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry.