Sharana (March 09, 2024, KUBHA News) Paktika is one of the provinces where the maternal and child mortality rate during childbirth is high.
The lack of female doctors and limited access to healthcare services are considered the main reasons for this mortality.
Civil activists in Paktika province say that out of the 24 districts in this province, only two female specialist doctors are active in the districts of Urgun and Khairkot.
A civil activist in Paktika province, who does not want his name to be mentioned in the report, told to Kubha News that the roads in Paktika province are not fundamentally constructed, and this situation causes patients to not be transferred to medical centers on time, when needed.
He says that even in Sharan, the provincial center of Paktika, the presence of female doctors is minimal, but the problem of the lack of doctors at the district level is very serious. In some health centers in the districts, due to the absence of doctors and the solution to the people’s health problems, twelfth-grade graduates work as health workers.
Javidurrahman, a resident of Paktika province, says that in the remote districts of this province, due to the absence of female doctors, pregnant women are forced to go to male doctors for childbirth.
He urges the Taliban government to send more female doctors to the provincial hospital and local clinics in districts.
A local reporter in Paktika province told to Kubha News that some women who are not allowed by their families to visit male doctors die at home during childbirth, and sometimes children also become victims of these restrictions.
This local reporter, who does not want his name to be mentioned in the report, says that out of the 24 districts in Paktika, only two female doctors work in Urgun and Khairkot districts.
However, officials from the Paktika Public Health Directorate, in response to Kubha News said that currently there are two female specialist doctors and five nurses in Sharana, the center of this province, one female specialist doctor in Urgun, and one female specialist doctor along with several nurses in Khairkot district, practically providing health services.
This directorate considers the previous government’s neglect of providing healthcare services at the district level as the cause of the current situation’s persistence.
Dr. Baz Mohammad Shirzad, former advisor to the Ministry of Public Health, attributes the lack of interest among families to send their daughters to schools and universities in the past as a factor preventing the emergence of new capacities in these areas, and even urban doctors refrain from going to these regions.
We tried to talk with female patients about women’s problems in the districts and the provincial hospital in Sharan, the center of Paktika province, but no one was willing to talk to us.