Awareness Campaigns Give Plateau Communities Massive Access To Family Planning Facilities
The Oasis Reporters
April 4, 2019
By Moses Gbande
The Nigerian government has in recent times joined the global community to tackle the issues of over population through the introduction of family planning techniques as a renewed measures to ensure proper spacing of children and to a large extent find lasting solutions to the increased level of untimely deaths of women during child bearing and other related health challenges.
But the question remains, what are the measures put in place to ensure that citizens effectively comply and access the facilities necessary for family planning?
When the Federal Ministry of Health launched Nigeria’s Family Planning Blueprint in 2014 with the goal of increasing family planning use from 15 percent to 36 percent of married women nationally by 2018, Plateau State, in North Central Nigeria immediately took bold steps to meet its share of the national goal, enabling 34 percent of married women to use contraceptives -and have greater access to the use of rights-based family planning services needed across the state.
This requires addressing client concerns around availability, accessibility, and affordability of a full range of methods, as well as the quality of family planning services.
This was demonstrated in 2017, when the Plateau State Family Planning Advocacy Working Group (Voice for Family Planning/Reproductive Health Center, Jos) identified the dearth of family planning-specific funding as the underlying challenge to the uptake of contraceptives. By dedicating and spending a larger share of government funds for family planning services, the quality and coverage of the programme could improve-including through training additional family planning service providers and procuring consumables required for the provision of more effective methods of contraceptives. Doing so would not only increase access and use, but would also save the lives of women and children while reducing healthcare costs.
However, a major family planning expert organization, “Pathfinder international” in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Plateau state embarked on advocacy tour of healthcare centres to ascertain facilities provided to family members in Plateau state.
A team of Journalists led by Mr. Wika Gofwon were in Riyom local government area, on an on the spot assessment of facilities and commodities consumed by clients on Wednesday, and uncover that family planning services are free.
At the Primary Healthcare (PHC) Riyom, the Chief Nursing Officer of the facility, Mrs. Sarah Nasa, head of the clinic services in an interactive session with journalists said family planning method was acceptable in the locality.
According to Mrs Nasa, Riyom Primary Healthcare do witness high influx of clients, between 40 to 50 persons monthly.
Giving reason for child spacing, the family planning expert said the method warrants healthy child spacing, and better upbringing of children.
Mrs. Sarah Nasa, told the visiting journalists that the only challenge being experienced was inadequate commodity, but noted that government was doing its best in providing the commodity (medicine) to the healthcare.
She named some of the commodities used in the clinic to include two months injectable method, three months injectable family planning method, five, and twelve years “Implanon and insert-able” family planning method. Others are monthly pills and condoms for both male and female.
She reveals that a husband of a client in some circumstances had taken her to the police station for accepting his wife as a family planning client.
The expert advised single ladies who can not afford to abstain from sex to adopt usage of any of the family planning methods as a way of avoiding the temptation of aborting pregnancies.
Three clients who were at the Primary Healthcare Riyom clinic to assess family planning services Mrs Evelyn Gyang, age 26, with two children, Regina Davou, a 28 year old housewife, a mother of four, and a 34 year old woman, Mrs. Rebecca Adamu with six children, said family planning method is effective, they encouraged other women of childbirth age to join family planning services.
However, Mrs. Regina Adamu in an interview with journalists said she desires to change from three months family planning method to the three years method, because the three months family planning method has been causing her health challenges.
“I want to change from the three months family planning method to that of three years, because each time I use the three months method my monthly cycle stops flowing normal for about a year, and when it starts, I do experience pains of the abdomen, and the discharge comes out weekly, and black too.”
At the Primary Healthcare, Ta-Hoss, another community also in Riyom local government, the officer in charge, Likka Manga Keneng, said family planning was highly acceptable in Ta-Hoss, but however says the success story is due to public awareness through religious leaders at worship centres on family planning.
Mrs. Likka said 78 persons in Ta-Hoss accessed family planning methods last month, March 2019; she revealed that there was shortage of male condoms being used for family planning in Ta-Hoss.
“A pack of male condoms contains 144 sachets, we do expend two packs every two weeks on males here in Ta-Hoss, but other commodity are available.”
Pathfinder international and the Plateau state government are on the family planning advocacy in the state to healthcare facilities, and clients to ascertain the level of awareness and acceptability to family planning commodity in the state.
