Mortality: state govts urged to provide Family Planning commodities

By Lovina Anthony, Akwa-ibom

A non governmental organization known as ‘The Challenged initiative, TCI, on Friday has tasked state governments in the country to provide consumables and commodities of family planning for effective service delivery.

They insisted that the provision of such consumables and commodities of family planning, will stem the tide of maternal mortality as well as unwanted pregnancy in Nigeria.

The Director, The Challenged Initiative, TCI, Nigeria Hub, Taiwo Johnson who made the appeal in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital during a facility tour to Primary Health Centres in the area said that States should make available these commodities to meet the rising needs of women who want to access family planning services.

Johnson observed that women are coming out to access family planning which was aimed to be free adding that, with state governments support, demand would be matched with supply thereby reducing the incidents of maternal mortality by 30 percent.

The TCI Director said that Federal government only provides 13% of the commodities needed for family planning, so it behoves on states to develop plan of procuring these commodities and look for domestic funding to sustain it.

“TCI wants to know the high impact practices and high impact interventions that have been sustained in these facilities. TCI is government led and what this means is that we support government to implement some of these high impact practices and continue with them when we leave and we ensure they put it in their operational plan.

“We appreciate the fact that Akwa Ibom government provided the enabling environment but we are saying that every state should procure their commodities and consumables. Government should release funds to implement this.

“Every woman deserves a family planning and family planning is a low hanging fruit for maternal mortality. It allows women having children by choice and not by chance, we want when a woman walks into a facility she gets these services there without any charge.

“Federal government can only provide 13 Percent of the commodities needed for family planning so what this means is that every state has to develop its plan to procure family planning commodities and find domestic funding to drive it.

“Some states have started doing it and this is more reason Akwa Ibom State government should start doing it too. Donor funds partner is not sustainable, TCI has timeline, FHIS has ended. So after that what happens? So we won’t go back to the status quo, no more outreaches, In-reaches, project supervision community mobilization. I think Akwa Ibom should ensure that family planning reaches a state of self reliance.”

In their separate remarks, the officers in charge of Primary Health Centres, Ewet Offot and Ikot Ebido all in Uyo, Mrs Rose Okon and Mrs Enobong Umoren noted that many women are accessing family planning unlike before through community mobilization programme.

They regretted the inadequate supply of family planning commodities and consumables and thanked commended TCI for providing the ones used so far for women of reproductive age even as they urged the state government to complement the efforts of TCI by providing these facilities for betterment of the women.