The case of the exploding patients

Mirvais Hospital in Kandahar is living dangerous days, as doctors tiptoe around wards packed with explosive patients.

The hospital has eleven Al-Qaeda patients, all with broken bones or internal injuries sustained during the US bombing campaign. Taken to the hospital, the best in the city, by the Taleban, they were put into a ward and their treatment began.

However, on examining the X-rays, doctors were horrified to see that they were armed with pistols and knives and had hand grenades strapped to their bodies. The patients declare that if they see any suspicious movement, they will blow themselves, and the hospital, into the skies.

The doctors are faces with a moral dilemma – flee the hospital or treat the patients. They chose to follow the ethics of the medical profession and proceeded to treat the Al-Qaeda fanatics, all of whom should leave the hospital within days or weeks, at the latest.

The Pashtun militia wants to move all of these patients into another wing of the hospital but the doctors fear that at any attempt to move them, they may explode. The dilemma continues.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY