The hospital in the Western Afghanistan city of Herat treats on average, 200 cases per day in a facility that has only four beds for every 1,000 people in the area.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith speaks to Doctor Ghaffar Khan Bawar, director of the hospital's self-immolation unit.

Female self-immolation has become an especially pressing issue in the western province of Herat.

Doctor Bawar says because most of the patients in self-immolation cases suffer burns to 60 per cent of their bodies, they are especially difficult to treat.