Kabul (EFE).- The lack of female doctors and the restrictions imposed by the Taliban on higher education for women have deepened the health crisis in the province of Paktika, in the southeast of Afghanistan, a region of one million inhabitants that barely It has three hospitals.
“It’s a problem, we need female doctors and in this province only two professional doctors are working together with a few general practitioners, midwives and nurses,” acknowledged Paktika’s deputy director of public health, Mohammad Qasim Nayel.
This situation implies that only a small percentage of the tens of thousands of inhabitants of the province have access to qualified professionals, which in the case of nurses and midwives is limited to basic health care, and even fewer visit doctors in case of illness. serious.
Dangerous journeys, long distances and diseases that do not improve, the consequences of the lack of female doctors in Afghanistan
“We cannot take our daughters or our daughter-in-law to male doctors and we try to solve the problems with the available nurses, but most of the time the disease does not improve,” a 55-year-old resident of the Gayan district, Wadafara, told EFE. .
“Of course, many times we ignore gynecological diseases due to the lack of female doctors, and to visit a hospital we have to travel more than two hours in very difficult conditions,” he explained.
Dewa Katawazaim, one of the doctors in the region, told EFE that “frequently” there are deaths of patients on the way to the hospital due to the long distances that many of the residents are forced to travel.
Added to the lack of doctors is the shortage of health centers in Paktika, with only three hospitals for a province that has 24 districts and that the authorities try to supply with other health centers and mobile teams to “maintain the health system active”, according to Nayel.
However, the source itself acknowledges that a good part of these health centers lack adequate equipment and supplies, or are not enough to meet the demand of the inhabitants.
The reality, the activist Qudratullah Katawazai lamented to EFE, is that the province has lagged behind even at the national level in terms of development.
“Unfortunately, the ongoing conflict has been one of the main obstacles to development in this province, including female education, and Paktika has lagged far behind in comparison to other regions,” she denounced.
Restrictions on women accentuate the crisis
With no university or colleges for women even before the Taliban came to power in August 2021, Katawazai sees little reason to change the situation in light of the fundamentalists’ decision to ban women’s higher education nationwide. .
“Unfortunately, the ban on secondary and higher education for girls will deepen the health crisis and other problems in this province,” said the activist.
The Taliban have imposed a plethora of restrictions on Afghan women since they came to power, including a ban on working for domestic and foreign NGOs, causing a drop in international aid to a country already mired in crisis. economic and humanitarian.
Many groups also stopped their operations in the Asian country, at least partially, making it difficult to provide necessary aid and key health services.
The restrictions range from covering the face to go out to go out, to be accompanied by a male relative to travel or the impossibility of studying or working in certain jobs.
This week a new ban by the Taliban that prevents women UN employees from working throughout Afghanistan also poses another risk to humanitarian services in this country, which depends on between 30% and 40% of its female workers.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated last February that 17.6 million people in Afghanistan will need health care in 2023, for which 450 million dollars will be needed.
