Afghanistan Times
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AT-KABUL: Public Health Ministry is concerned of the low number of female health workers while they are more needed.
“Women made significant contribution to the strategies and plans in the ministry and in the delivery of health services,” health minister Ferozuddin Feroz said Wednesday.
He emphasized the need for recruitment more female healthcare workers for strengthen health service and equitable, saying that Afghanistan faced severe shortage of female health workers.
The UNFPA Representative Bannet Ndyanabangi said that education barriers and child marriages as the big challenges before Afghan women, adding that girls need to acquire education to take part in the healthcare sector.
She said the UNFPA was committed to supporting Afghan public health ministry in increasing the number of female health workers in both service delivery and management.
“We need to invest on more enforcement and recruitment and policies for in improving of healthcare workers,” said the representative of the WHO in Afghanistan. “Discrimination and harassment remain challenges that must be urgently tackled. Women must be encouraged and supported to apply for work in the health sector and we must ensure safe and respectful workplaces for everyone. Employing women in the health sector brings better health and well-being for all.” He said
Afghan women’s health indicators, specifically in section of health reproductive remained lowest globally. Gender-based violence is a great problem, causing demolishing effects for women’s physical, reproductive and mental health, according to the public health ministry.
It says that gender inequality in decision-making hampers women’s access to health services and information. Lack of female healthcare workers also forms a barrier for women’s equal access to healthcare. Only around 53% of rural clinics in Afghanistan have a female physician.
Only 22% of doctors are women, while 21% of the nurses are ladies, according to the ministry data. Presently, 11,037 women health workers provide essential basic health services and health trains to women around the country.
