KABUL (Pajhwok): The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says 699 out of every 100,000 mothers die during childbirths in Afghanistan, but the Ministry of Public Health disputed the figures.
In a report published yesterday, OCHA said Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest rates of maternal, infant and child mortality, with 699 deaths per 100,000 births.
It said a combination of four decades of conflict, a lack of structural investment in the health system, and less donor support for longer-term development assistance since August 2021 has affected the accessibility and quality of maternity and paediatric health-care services and gains made over the last 20 years are now being reversed.
Dr. Sahar, who was recently promoted from health-care officer to regional health-care manager of a United Nations (UN) organization in Afghanistan said the country’s public health-care system nearly crumbled after the government was overthrown in August 2021, but the UN and its partners helped to sustain the health-care services that were still in place today.
“If Afghanistan wants to enhance access to public health care for women and children, it needs more women health professionals. Many skilled female health-care professionals left the country after the fall of the Government, and this caused a significant gap in the health-care sector.”
However, Ministry of Public Health spokesman Dr. Sharafat Zaman said the figures of mothers’ deaths during childbirths published by OCHA were baseless.
He said they held meetings with such organizations from time to time, but they provided no figures and data. “They have published a baseless estimated figure.”
He said it was MoPH policy to work in all areas where there was a need.
He added special attention was being paid to the health of mother and child and the ministry would build about 150 family health nests next year.
A midwife, a nurse, a guard and a sweeper work in family health nests and provide healthcare to mothers and newborns.
Dr. Zaman said: “Health centers built in the past two years are mostly dedicated to mothers and children. In the past 20 years, such special attention was not paid to mothers and children, especially in remote areas. The Ministry of Public Health has built new health centers to provide health services to mothers during childbirth in order to reduce their mortality rate.”
Without giving details, Dr. Zaman said MoPH figures showed maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan had gradually decreased since 2020 and significantly decreased in 2022.
He put the number of mothers dying during childbirth this year at 256, citing figures from health centers. “At the community level, it’s around 240.”
Earlier this year, international charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said giving birth was a life-or-death struggle for women in Afghanistan, where roughly one mother was believed to die every two hours from preventable pregnancy and childbirth complications.
But the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) rejected the MSF claim, saying the mother-child mortality rates had decreased compared to previous years and 170 special clinics for mothers and children were being established to improve health services.
At the time, MoPH spokesman said: “Before the arrival of the Islamic Emirate, good things were not done for mothers and children, in every hundred thousand births, eleven hundred mothers would lose their lives during childbirths in the past, but this is not the case now.”
According to World Health Organization, Afghanistan had the highest maternal mortality rate among countries in 2002, but in the last decade, the mortality rate decreased by 60 percent.
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