This is just heartbreaking.
Families step in at Kabul COVID-19 ward to care for patients
"The 100-bed Afghan-Japan Communicable Disease Hospital in western Kabul is one of only two facilities for coronavirus testing and treatment in the Afghan capital. Newly graduated Afghan doctors have joined the 370-member staff after many of the hospital’s experienced physicians walked out a few months ago, fearing the virus.
The 92-square-meter (1,000-square-foot) ICU ward has only 13 beds, and COVID-19 patients admitted here are in critical condition; few are hooked up to ventilators, some of the others rely on oxygen tanks.
Assadullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, says he struggled to stay awake night after night at the ICU ward, guarding the tank that kept his father alive. In his father’s final days, the relative of another patient came over, threatening to take the tank.
“Your father is dying but mine is alive, he told me ... in such a situation, how could I have left my father alone,” said Assadullah, who lost his father to the virus on Tuesday.
Abdul Rahman, 42, feels the same way and rushes to rub his 70-year-old mother’s back every time she coughs."
