Maternity Hospitals Are Being Closed All Over Belarus
7- 4.09.2025, 11:16
- 5,934
The birth rate has halved in eight years.
Maternity hospitals are closing one after another in the country. Maternity patients have to travel sometimes, writes BGmedia.
A difficult situation with access to medicine has developed in Kalinkovichi. The district hospital there has been under renovation for several years, and the maternity ward has also been closed. Maternity patients are ordered to go to Mozyr. But the problem is that the bridge connecting Mozyr and Kalinkovichi has been under reconstruction for 2 years. The detour takes several times longer. For example, the length of route No. 6, which connected the "Zarechny" microdistrict with the "mainland" Mozyr, increased more than 4 times, and the travel time - 3 times.
Mozyr maternity hospital is overcrowded, because women from Yelsk, Narovli and Zhitkovichi are sent there to give birth.
The residents of Kalinkovichi are dissatisfied with the situation. "My daughter has been in labor many times, she had a very difficult pregnancy, and then they closed the maternity ward in Kalinkovichi and the gynecological department. When contractions started, we had to take her by car to the maternity hospital in Mozyr, and we were worried all the way that we would not make it in time. Also the maternity hospital in Mozyr was overcrowded. I think it's a miracle that she didn't give birth on the way, because we took a detour, through a new bridge," said a resident of one of the villages of Kalinkovichi district.
In comments on the closure of the maternity hospital in Kalinkovichi, people shared their pain: the situation with the closure of maternity hospitals affects not only the district center, but the whole of Belarus. Thus, the maternity hospital in Vileika is closed, so one has to go to Maladechna. Maternity wards in Hluboki and Dokshitsy have been closed, although the local residents were against it. Women from Khoiniki go to Rechitsa to give birth, which is 60 kilometers away, from Pruzhany and Hantsevichy - to Baranavichy.
The maternity hospital in Polotsk was built for 12 years, but in 2024 it was demolished and women in labor were offered to go to Novopolotsk. Women from Gluboki and Dokshits were also sent there.
Fertility as in war
In 2024, 58,993 children were born in Belarus, which is 8.7% less than in 2023. Belarus' birth rate per 1,000 inhabitants is now at about the same level as Ukraine's birth rate during the war. In Ukraine, 177 thousand children were born in 2024, which is 6 per 1,000 inhabitants. In Belarus - 59 thousand children, which is about 6.6 per 1,000 inhabitants.
If 117,779 children were born in Belarus in 2016, only 58,938 were born in 2024. The birth rate in the country has halved in eight years.
The UN predicts that the population of Belarus may halve by 2100 and will amount to about 4.5 million people.
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