Residents Of Remote Herat Areas Demand Healthcare

HERAT CITY (Pajhwok): In remote villages of western Herat province, poverty, lack of inadequate infrastructure and long distances from health centres are daily realities and the absence of medical services has become one of the most serious daily challenges.

Noor Gul, a resident of Pashtjoy village in Injil district who has been suffering from an illness for a long time, says:“I am jobless; there are no jobs and our farming land yields very little. In this harsh economic situation, how can I afford to take myself or my sick relative to the city for treatment?”

He urged the caretaker government to establish health centres in far-flung districts so that people could transfer their patients in time and get them treated.

Shamoun, a resident of Pashtun Zarghun district who had brought a patient to Herat city for treatment, said:“There are no doctors, no medicine and no clinics in our area. People see with their own eyes their loved ones are dying from simple illnesses. A neighbour's father lost his eyesight because of the lack of medicine and healthcare facilities.”

He added that hundreds of families in Pashtun Zarghun lived far from the district centre and available medical services.

He also believed that remote areas were in dire need of healthcare and these services should not be limited to district centres alone.

“This pain is not ours alone-neighbouring districts face the same conditions. We have no clinics, no doctors. Diseases are increasing, but no one is there to help,” he added.

Similarly, Sediq Ahmad, a resident of Zawal district, said:“In our villages, there is not even a single clinic. If someone falls ill, they must go to Shindand district. But most people cannot afford the cost of transport and medical care.”

According to him, unemployment and the poor economic situation have forced many people to give up on taking their sick family members to the city or nearby districts for treatment.

At the same time, social affairs experts stress that access to healthcare is a fundamental right of every citizen.

They say the government, in collaboration with its partner organisations, must strive to provide widespread and accessible healthcare-especially in districts and remote regions.

Gulab Haidari, a social affairs expert, described the current situation in remote areas as“tragic” and emphasised that the government must provide essential healthcare services for these communities, such as free local clinics, mobile health teams and emergency ambulance services.

According to him, the lack of basic health services not only endangers individual wellbeing but also creates a fertile ground for the spread of dangerous diseases.

Healthcare workers also acknowledge that many patients from remote areas only reach hospitals when their condition is deteriorated so severely that even doctors could no longer help.

Hamid Rasouli, a healthcare worker at a private hospital, warned that the spread of contagious diseases in remote areas could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe because, as he noted, people were not only impoverished but also lived far from healthcare facilities.

Meanwhile, the Herat Public Health Department acknowledges that at present, some districts lack health centres altogether, or if present, they require upgrading.

Deputy Public Health Director Dr. Ghulam Mohammad Hanifi said that while mobile health teams were operating in some areas, they were insufficient-especially in nomadic (Kuchi) regions where access to these services was even more limited.

He cited the shortage of human resources and the lack of budget as major reasons behind the failure to expand medical services to remote areas and appealed to international organisations to assist in establishing new health centres, particularly in isolated regions.

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