John Godwin, senior registrar, Department of Community Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), has said that if family planning is adequately embraced, economic prosperity, and sustainable development would be achieved.
Godwin, who stated this in Ilorin at a media round table on Family Planning with the theme, ‘Unlocking Sustainable Development through Family Planning: Exploring the Connections between Population, Prosperity, and the Planet’, advocated for improved investment in family planning activities to reduce maternal mortality, alleviate poverty, reduce energy consumption, and mitigate climate change.
Read also: Group canvases family planning, child-spacing for healthy population
Family planning according to him is highly beneficial as it interacts with all aspects of life and the proposed sustainable development goals which include; education, health, agriculture, food security, ICT among other agenda.
He recommended that, family planning services should be rendered 100percent free to encourage more people to key in to the programme, adding that “A society where family planning is working; population rate would be controlled and slower.
“When it is slower; the pressure on natural resources such as agriculture, ecosystem and other resources our country is endowed with will be well managed and regulated.
“Family planning is meant to strike balance between population rate and nation’s resources; improve maternal health: ensure food sufficiency, socio- economic growth and empower women.”
Read also: ‘Kwara specialist hospital receives 500 clients for family planning monthly’
Earlier, Jatto Bashirat Adebukola, Kwara State Family Coordinator, from the Ministry of Health disclosed that, the 17.1percent contraceptive accessibility in the state is very low, saying, “we are set to improve the contraceptive prevalence rate, especially among women of reproductive age. Our major challenge is the misconception about family planning among rural dwellers.
“This is what our health providers in all facilities and family planning mobilisers have embarked upon to sensitive the person health benefits of contraceptives, child spacing and other activities involved in family planning.”
Adebukola declared that service providers and commodities are adequately available in the 16 local government areas of the state, she urged women to access facility services to improve healthy living.
In his submission, Adewale Adefila PhD, the The Challenge Initiative (TCI), the state Team lead, canvassed involvement of teenage and youth through their parents to minimise unwanted pregnancy among mothers to be.
Adefila, represented by Sharon Gabriel, the TCI Programme Officer, explained that the NGO provide technical assistance to ensure that no woman die of pregnancy complication, adding that, “TCI has been in to family planning outreach to the grassroot, dispel misinformation and always support with consumables.”
