From PATRICK AKPUH, Ibadan
The link between family planning, maternal morbidity, national development and the need for government funding of contraception advocacy and services was at the centre of a media sensitization programme recently at Odedeme hall, D’Rovans Hotel, Ibadan the Oyo State capital.
At the forum were officials of the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) and selected group of journalists from both the print and electronic media.
The state team leader of NURHI, Mrs. Stella Akinso, on a special presentation, stated that an average of 750,000 abortions occurred in Nigeria every year, and that 35 per cent of them were by married women.
For many poor couples, said Akinso, sex was the cheapest recreational activity. And as a matter of fact, most men in rural areas and urban slums beat their wives if refused sex. Given the proclivity of men to having sex, without necessary family planning safeguard, the attendant result was often unplanned pregnancy, which often than not called for abortion, she observed.
Most poor women are caught in this trap, because they lack access to safe and voluntary family planning services, Akinso remarked at the advocacy session. She also noted that family planning was sometimes perceived as a foreign idea, hence the reluctance of many people to embrace it.
But according to her, family planning has been practised in typical traditional African societies since the olden days. “In those days, a man would send his wife and baby to her mother’s place in order to allow her wean her baby and also avoid the temptation of having sex. There are other methods which are considered fetish though. They involve the use of charms in form of rings, waist bands and padlocks. The age long withdrawal method is also a pregnancy prevention method, although it is widely considered unreliable”, she explained.
Today, Akinso said ,there is a long list of modern and highly effective methods of contraception, but regretted that issues like religious belief, myths and superstitions militate against the adoption of family planning which, she stresses, is the surest way of reducing maternal and child mortality. But, couples may find family planning unaffordable, or may not even know where and how to access it.
Akinso attributes this to the fact that the Nigerian Government does not dedicate any fund in pursuit of Family Planning programmes. Indeed, family planning programmes in Nigeria are largely donor- driven. She also said that the trend would deal the biggest blow to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria. In her words, |no human centered programme in the world has a stronger link to the MDGs than Family Planning and Reproductive Health”. According to Akinso, the actualization of the MDGs lies deeply in the core of a well planned family. The NURHI state team leader therefore called on the Government to make budgetary allocations for Family Planning and Reproductive Health programmes in order to make the services affordable to poor women whom are most susceptible to reproductive health and child spacing problems. NURHI, she says, focuses on urban areas because, according to statistics, about 47per cent of Nigerians live in urban environments, with most of them in urban slums, and it is projected that by 2035, 50 per cent of Nigeria’s poor would be living in urban areas.
Dr. (Mrs.) Celina Johnson, the Private Sector Advisor of NURHI, while recently inaugurating the Family Planning Providers Network (FPPN) at Kakanfo Inn, Joyce B Road, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, group’s advocacy goal is to increase funding mechanisms for family planning so that the services could be affordable and always available.
She also says that NURHI hopes to increase the involvement of men in Family Planning issues as well as dispel myths and superstitions surrounding family planning.
Regretting that the family planning programmes are not covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Mrs. Akinso promised that her group would not rest until Government and major stakeholders are deeply involved.
http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/goodhealth/2011/may/03/goodhealth-03-05-2011-02.htm
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