Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Access to Basic Health Services 22pc up: MoPH

Access to Basic Health  Services 22pc up: MoPH

KABUL - The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Sunday said people’s access to basic health services increased by 22 percent during the last three years, with mother-child mortality rate falling by 45 percent.
Inaugurating the Seventh Conference of Health Results here, MoPH officials expressed concern about increased injury incidents and communicable diseases.
The two-day conference that kicked off today would discuss problems and solutions in the health sector.
AttaullahSayedzai, general head of health information at MoPH, said only 63 percent of people would avail health services three years ago compared to 85 percent today after 300 new healthcare centers were made functional across the country
Sayedzai said currently 2,500 healthcare centers were active in the country but Uruzgan, Zabul, Ghor, Nuristan and Farah provinces still faced with the shortage of these centers, an issue that needed attention.
He called the shortage of female doctors and nurses as one of the main challenges as currently only 25 percent of healthcare centers had female doctors.
However, the MoPH official said 1,600 out of 100,000 mothers would lose lives during childbirth in 2003 compared to 660 deaths in 2017 and 390 so far this year.
He added 70 children under five years of age among 100,000 children lost their lives to curable diseases in 2016 and the death had now reduced 67.
But Sayedzai said communicable, breathing, heart, high blood pressure diseases and injuries in the war and traffic accidents had increased.
Polluted water and air, poverty, unhealthy food and the ongoing war were main factors behind the increased health problems, he said.
Dr. NasrinOryakhel, head of Medical Council of MoPH, talking in the conference, said that poor quality of health services was another major problem in the country.
She said the Afghans spent $350 million on medical treatment in India alone due to poor quality of health services inside the country.
“If the quality of health services is improved, people would no longer need to travel abroad for treatment”, she added.
For finding solutions to these problems needed researches and the two-day conference would also discuss these issues, Oryakhel said.

She said the Medical Council was ready to pave the ground for scientific research in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education.  (Pajhwok)