President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday said that the health care system in Afghanistan remains weak, but pledged to undertake systematic reforms at major hospitals including police hospitals.

Addressing the inauguration ceremony of Afghan Medical Council in Kabul, Ghani said that the 300-Bed police hospital will be promoted to a standard hospital which would be equivalent to Sardar Daud 400-bed hospital and NDS hospitals.

“Medicines in the country are bad quality. A UNDP official purchased pills from the market, but he remained at hospital for two years and suffered much pain. What do you think, what would be the situation of other people. A circle of evil has contracts with the medics and medical stores and they supply them with low-quality medicines, this situation has to change,” said Ghani.

According to Ghani, in some cases, the doctors prescribe patients the wrong medicine and said the present health system should be changed.

“No attention was paid to the police hospital. Not one single person was sent abroad on a scholarship from this hospital which indicates that an act of oppression has been carried out against the hospital, a doctor was not promoted after 26 years of service, this system is not acceptable,” added Ghani.

Meanwhile, Afghan minister of public health Ferozudin Feroz has said that the number of female health workers and doctors are quite low in the country, adding that there are no female doctors in provinces such as Nuristan, Paktika, Zabul and Uruzgan.

“More than 40 percent of health centers have no female doctors in provinces like Nuristan, Paktika, Zabul and Uruzgan,” said Feroz.

According to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Afghans spent nearly $300 million on treatment outside the country in the past few years with 90 percent of these patients suffering from heart diseases.

In addition Ghani pledged to consider an increase in the salaries of doctors, saying the current salary scale was not sufficient.

Years of civil war and violence has had a devastating effect on the Afghan healthcare system and unlike other countries in the region, Afghanistan has seen increasing rates of preventable diseases such as diarrhea and respiratory infections.