When nurses cannot do their job
Sadat worked at the Jamhuriat Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. Sadaf, a 25-year-old nurse, had big dreams when she started college four years ago to study medicine. After the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban banned women from attending universities. This forced Sadaf, like hundreds of other women, to leave the university. Instead, she started working as a nurse in a hospital. Now even that opportunity has been removed, as the Taliban make it difficult for women to work, even as nurses. Sadaf is not his real name. We cannot use his name because it is dangerous for people in Afghanistan to talk to the media, especially women.
“After the government fell to the Taliban, we women were gradually removed from society, and now the Taliban don’t even allow us to work in hospitals,” Sadaf said. He said instead of receiving hospital treatment, he was now sitting at home as an inmate. “The Taliban warned me that I can no longer work in this hospital and other hospitals because according to them, a woman cannot work outside the home,” Sadaf said. The new restrictions on nurses in Afghanistan come as the International Council of Nurses (ICN), in its latest report documenting a global shortage of nurses.
The stress and fatigue caused in part by the pandemic has caused many nurses to leave the profession. This is a global health emergency, the report says. Research shows that more and more nurses are expected to leave in the next few years in countries around the world. If nurses are to fulfill their vital role in improving health systems, this needs to be addressed urgently.
Relying on nursing resilience is not an option, the report says. Governments must accept responsibility for their poor planning and practices that lead to a chronic shortage of nurses around the world. Afghanistan is an Islamic country where female nurses are not allowed to care for male patients and where pregnant women feel uncomfortable in the presence of male nurses when they give birth. But by driving women out of hospitals, said Sadaf, the Taliban had opened up more opportunities for men to work in maternity wards.
Before the new restrictions, female doctors rarely worked in hospitals. Now the Taliban have forced them to stop working altogether. Wherever they work in hospitals, female nurses often face negative treatment from hospital administrators, doctors and patients and colleagues, said Sadaf. Unlike other countries, nurses in Afghanistan are not rewarded for the care they provide. In addition, he said, another nurse who also cannot be named said that when working in the female nurse’s ward, women must wear a full headscarf, face covered with a mask, and long, loose clothing.
“The hospital director warned us that our nursing uniforms cannot have belts either,” said the nurse. This means that the clothes must be completely loose and fall below the knees. He also said that the Taliban fighters at the entrance of the hospital were monitoring their movements. “What clothes do we leave or go home, and whether we have Muharram Sharia (husband or bride).
