• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Group urges Kwara government to release fund on family planning

family planning

The Awareness Initiative for Good living (AIGL) in Kwara State has urged the state government to release budgeted fund for family planning in order to improve on maternal health and reduce mortality rates.

Ajibola Wahab, Chairman, AIGL in the State, who made the plea at an Advocacy Core Group Meeting in collaboration with Pathfinder International, Nigeria, stressed the need for the release of funds for Family Planning to buy consumables.

“We discovered that NGOs have been supplying the facilities, but there are no consumable and we want to make family planning free so that when you access family planning you don’t need to pay a dime, but we discovered that anybody that goes for family planning they will still ask her to pay certain amount of money and we said it should be free,” he said

According to him, when a patient gets there, they will tell her that she is paying for the consumable that is not provided.

He explained that consumables are; cotton wool, needle and syringe, methylated spirit and all materials that are necessary to access the devices, however, said that, “the government is not doing this and that is why we are advocating for government to fund family planning.

“The funding we are talking of is to them to buy consumable so that when consumable is bought to every facility in the state; then individual would be able to access family planning free of charge.

“Our objective of this meeting is based on how to gear up the state government. All along, they have been approving our budget for family planning but they have never released any fund. It on this, we want to strategize on how to make it possible this year so that government can release fund.

“We learnt that this year, three million was approved for family planning so, our meeting today, is actually based on how to get out that three million.”

In her submission, Kosi Izundu, Program Officer, Reproductive Health/Family Planning, Pathfinder International, stated that the meeting was to review their activities so far in the year and also to strategize how best to go about the work plans for the rest of the year and as well to brainstorm on how to work efficiently and move forward.

“Family planning is a sensitive issue, not what everybody buys into, that is why our advocacy is really important in terms of securing funding and ensuring that even with the commitment in to create budget line, the money is actually released and used for what it is budgeted for.”

She encouraged every woman of reproductive age to go and access MPE services for free, talk to a trained health to give advice on the best method that is suitable for her and also consult with her spouse to see how best to go about living the family life and to make best decision for herself.

Izundu, explained further that, after the meeting, the group will be able to work together and be able to achieve its goals and objectives and for every mile stone, they will be able to record remarkable success and that this success is able to affect the state as a whole in terms of ensuring that women are able to live a healthy and better life.

“ It is not just about the advocacy but the biggest goal is that, we want to make sure that every woman in Kwara State is healthy, she should be able to get pregnant when she wants to, able to delay pregnancy, able to take good care of her child and to space child bearing,” she added

Sadiat Bola Asaju, family planning coordinator Kwara State Ministry of Health noted that there is lots of improvement in the service, “we have been receiving support from our partners in the state.

“My advice to women is that family planning is very effective in improving child health and maternal health and it can reduce infant and mortality rate. We want men to support their wives in taking family planning commodity.

She expressed hope that after the meeting, “there will be increase in the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) for the family planning in the state. Presently, the CPR is 10.3 percent but our met need is 30.7 percent so we want to improve it and there are lots of agencies standing in the state to improve those things when the fund is released.”

 

SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin