{"id":8919,"date":"2024-09-19T19:01:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T15:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deeyar.tv\/?p=8919"},"modified":"2025-12-01T16:59:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T12:29:03","slug":"%d8%b3%da%a9%d9%88%d8%aa-%d9%88-%d9%85%d8%ad%da%a9%d9%88%d9%85%db%8c%d8%aa%d8%9b-%da%af%d8%b0%d8%b1%db%8c-%d8%a8%d8%b1-%d8%a8%db%8c%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%87%d8%a7%db%8c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/8919\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence and Condemnation: A Glimpse Into Kabul\u2019s Hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Legs tremble, hands shake, and eyes wander. No one is calm, and only a few people in the hospital waiting room attempt small talk with the person beside them\u2014words wrapped in innocent lies meant to comfort shattered hearts.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Illness\u2014especially when acute or life-threatening\u2014unwillingly exiles a person to another realm, a different air and world; to a community for whom the hospital is the constant and familiar passage. And worse still when these silent convicts find themselves exiled to hospitals in Kabul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the word for this place stings. Bimarestan<\/em>\u2014a \u201cland\u201d of the ill, much like \u201cAfghanistan,\u201d \u201cPakistan,\u201d and all the other \u201c-stan\u201ds. The moment you step inside, it feels as if you\u2019ve entered another territory, another sky. And that is the truth: you are torn away from the world of the healthy. Here, in every corner, only one thing flows\u2014an unending struggle for survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fear healthy people feel toward hospitals cannot simply be reduced to the fear of catching an infectious disease. A healthy person does not want to witness this maddening \u201cland.\u201d They prefer to deny its existence entirely, keeping thoughts of it far away from the dreams of a triumphant life. They push away any sense of proximity to death as quickly as possible. Their fear of the hospital is not merely the fear of becoming ill, but the dread of confronting the final anxiety of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as with everything else in the social life of humans steeped in the filth of neoliberalism and capitalism, hospitals and their desolate inhabitants are defined by class. From the enormous differences between hospitals in the U.S., Europe, or even cities like Karachi, Delhi, and Hyderabad\u2014compared to the hellscape here in Kabul\u2014to the internal divides created by patients\u2019 unequal financial means, the result is clear: a hospital in New York, London, or Vancouver bears little resemblance to a hospital in this dystopian nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this place, where the presence of death reaches its cold logical conclusion, the miserable patient measures what little fortune they have against the miseries of others. And most miserable of all is the one for whom death is no longer a possibility among possibilities, but an approaching certainty\u2014staring directly into their eyes without mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kabul adds another element to the despair of its patients: distrust. In a city where doctors emerge from medical schools armed with money, recklessness, and family connections rather than knowledge, one cannot place the same trust one would in Hippocrates or Fleming. The Kabul patient knows, deep down, that their desperation to hold onto the shrinking circle of life becomes an opportunity for wealthy hospital owners: a chance to empty already-empty pockets and stretch out their helpless hand before a crowd of the unscrupulous. The patient knows not whom to trust\u2014or how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These silent convicts, cast out from the land of health and well-being, are the loneliest of all. Their suffering satisfies no human longing for a noble death; they are too many, too repetitive. And the most honest reaction anyone\u2014anyone with a trace of humanity\u2014can muster is: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but what can be done?\u201d Though much could<\/em> be done\u2014and humanity has not done it, and perhaps never will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have always hesitated between two words for this melancholic, maddening place: bimarestan<\/em> and shafakhana<\/em>\u2014the latter undeniably more beautiful. But in Kabul, how many of these places truly deserve to be called shafakhana<\/em>, a sanctuary that sends you back smiling to the circle of healing? And how many are instead the land of silent, hopeless, and\u2014at best\u2014barely hopeful plague-stricken souls: hospitals in the starkest, bleakest sense? Fortunate will be the day when this city can call more of them shafakhana<\/em>\u2014places of healing\u2014rather than bimarestan<\/em>, domains of the afflicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legs tremble, hands shake, and eyes wander. No one is calm, and only a few people in the hospital waiting room attempt small talk with the person beside them\u2014words wrapped in innocent lies meant to comfort shattered hearts. Illness\u2014especially when acute or life-threatening\u2014unwillingly exiles a person to another realm, a different air and world; to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302,51],"tags":[656,279],"class_list":["post-8919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-stories","category-spotlight","tag-656","tag-279"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8919"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37744,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8919\/revisions\/37744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}