EXCLUDING women from medical institutes threatens the future of healthcare in Afghanistan, Doctors without Borders (MSF) has warned.

Earlier this week, the Taliban announced that women in Afghanistan will be banned from training as nurses and midwives in another stage in the removal of women from public and professional life.

Previous bans have already curtailed access to other opportunities in education for women.

Afghanistan has one the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with the World Health Organisation reporting 620 deaths per 100,000 births.

The insufficient number of female healthcare workers in the country already affects the availability of healthcare, MSF said, especially due to the separation of male and female hospital wards.

The group of professionals said new constraints will “further restrict access to quality healthcare and pose serious dangers to its availability in the future.”

MSF Afghanistan representative Mickael Le Paih said: “There is no healthcare system without educated female health practitioners.

“In MSF, more than 41 per cent of our medical staff are women.

“The decision to bar women from studying at medical institutes will further exclude them from both education and the impartial provision of healthcare.

“If no girls can attend secondary school, and no women can attend university or medical institutes, where will the female health professionals of the future come from and who will attend to Afghan women when they are at their most vulnerable?

“For essential services to be available to all genders, they must be delivered by all genders.”

Following the announcement, Human Rights Watch interim women’s rights deputy director Heather Barr said the ban will cause unnecessary pain, misery, sickness and death for women forced to go without healthcare.