Inside the wards, the paint is peeling off the walls. There are stained mattresses, cracked tiles. Medicine is scarce. Even basic supplies like gloves and syringes must be bought by the patients, if they can afford them. “There are days we work 24/7,” Dr Nasrin Lalzad tells me. “We see 50 to 60 women a day. And still, it’s not enough.”

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This is the only maternity hospital in the province. But a place that’s meant to bring life into the world, is now a witness to frequent tragedy. An average of two mothers and three babies die at this hospital every month, higher than elsewhere in Afghanistan. A man with a black beard and dark turban stands silently near the maternity ward entrance. He tells me his wife had given birth that day. Their baby had died. “We came too late,” the father of six says. “The midwives tried everything. But there was no oxygen left,  they had to borrow it from other patients. By the time it came, my baby was gone." This wasn’t an isolated case. The doctors here see this every week. Some women go into labour at home. And it can take up to 15 hours before they reach the hospital. By then it’s often too late.