Kabul – The international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has opened a new maternity hospital in eastern Khost Province in Afghanistan, which will provide pregnant women in the region with desperately needed high-quality healthcare.

Decades of conflict have left Afghanistan with maternal and child mortality rates among the highest in the world. Most women, especially in rural areas, must resort to giving birth without skilled assistance and in unhealthy conditions, which puts their own lives and those of their children at significant risk.

Khost is one of Afghanistan’s most volatile provinces, where national and international military forces have engaged in intense fighting with armed opposition groups in recent years. The conflict has affected the ability for women to access adequate maternal healthcare.

 “The new hospital will be able to help hundreds of women every month make safe deliveries and care for their newborn children by offering specialised care,” said Hilde Cortier, medical director of the new MSF facility.

The 56-bed maternity will be the first specialised center of its kind in the region. The maternity has a delivery room that offers obstetric care for normal and complicated deliveries and an operating theatre for emergency obstetric surgery. Ill pregnant women will be hospitalised in the wards, to which women will also be admitted after giving birth or undergoing surgery. There is a neo-natal ward for newborns requiring specialised care.

MSF’s international and Afghan staff will work together in the hospital. Only female doctors will tend to the patients. All healthcare services and medicines will be free of charge.

As in all MSF hospitals in Afghanistan, a strict no-weapons policy will be enforced to ensure patient safety and security.