'More patients and fewer doctors': The struggle for maternity care in Afghanistan

In this village in Kabul province, there is no clinic or hospital. For many Afghan women here, getting medical care is a daily struggle. At 38, Mursal is expecting her 11th child. She has given birth eight times at home, as do around a third of Afghan women. But now, in her ninth month of pregnancy, she is determined to do everything she can to give birth in a hospital. Two hours and forty-seven. It takes about two hours to get to the clinic. It's expensive for me because I have many children and my husband doesn't have a job. But I want to give birth at the clinic so my child and I are not in danger. I want to be able to go home healthy. Today, Mursal is visited by Maryam, a neighbor who has been trained by an NGO to provide basic health care to pregnant women in remote villages. Are you experiencing any bleeding? Uh, no. Are you taking your multivitamin tablets correctly? Yes. When your due date approaches, you'll need to go to the clinic with your family. If the baby arrives too early, you risk complications like hemorrhaging. And you'll need to have an ultrasound in the ninth month, okay? In this village, a group of women are taking part in an awareness session led by an other community health worker. Thank Thank you for coming today. During your pregnancy, you need to go to the clinic four times. The clinic is in Malaqat. My father, my mother-in-law and my mother-in-law are all here. you Kulkidui lost two of her baby boys shortly after birth. very At the time, she was suffering from anemia. When I was pregnant, I didn't eat enough. much. My children weren't vaccinated. But now I've learned a lot. I'm vaccinated and we've been told about the risks of iron deficiency and other problems. Today, my daughter's alive and well. At this private maternity clinic in Kabul, the number of patients has risen sharply since 2021. Dr. Shefa Jo, a gynecologist, is overwhelmed. But she's also worried about the future. Women make up to 95 percent of the clinic's staff, including many inexperienced students who were unable to complete their medical training because of the restrictions imposed by the Taliban. Because the number of doctors is low, the number of... There are fewer doctors, but the number of patients is increasing. What do you think will happen in a few years? Will our healthcare systems stay the same? Imagine a society without female doctors. Do you think a woman would go to a male doctor to give birth? People go to a male doctor for birth control, they go. By preventing women from pursuing key medical training programs, the Taliban are putting the future of Afghanistan's health care system at risk. International organizations warn that the country could lose 5,400 female health care professionals by 2030.