Nigerian govt and ARFH train community health extension workers on birth control

Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), through the Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH), has commenced a national training of community health extension workers (CHEWs) on boosting access to long lasting contraceptives in the country. 

 

Coordinator, Reproductive Health, FMOH, Dr Jose Adeniran, speaking at the start-up meeting on increasing access to contraceptives training of CHEWs as part of task-shifting policy in Nigeria (INACT) project, said the involvement of the CHEWs was to take the services to the doorsteps of all women, irrespective of where they reside in the country.

Dr Adeniran, saying that family planning had been identified as one of the quick means of ensuring a reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity, declared that the Federal Government brought the CHEWs on board in order to promote the well-being of mothers and children as this was critical to family stability, the society and national development.
Declaring that the involvement of CHEWs in provision of family planning services, especially injectable contraceptives had been ratified by the National Council of Health, Dr Adeniran said, “from the National Demographic Health Survey, injectable contraceptives contribute about three per cent of the contraceptive prevalence rate of women . So with the volume of the people, we can improve on this.”

“From the survey, 20 per cent of women desire family planning and if we are able to win them, then our contraceptive prevalence rate will go to 30 per cent. We are aiming for 36 per cent come 2018,” she said.

Already, she said the manual for their training  had been developed and pre-tested in Lagos, Enugu and Kano States to ensure training of all CHEWs in the country could commence on injectable contraceptives.

The start-up meeting, she said, was the kick-starting of the training initially in Oyo, Kaduna and Edo States in its first phase, with funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

President, ARFH, Professor Oladapo Lad ipo explained that the rational for training and task shifting was partly because of inadequate number of health workers in Nigeria and their inequitable distribution.

Professor Ladipo said: “We have lots of CHEWs deplored to primary health care centres and in those centres, especially in rural and periurban areas, therefore, there is need to task shift to give them some additional responsibilities, which we are confident that they can implement.

“We also need to provide supportive supervision having given them those skills and monitor what they are doing,” he said.

According to him, “to meet Federal Government’s ambitious target of contraceptive prevalence rate of 36 per cent by 2018, we must provide necessary personnel to provide evidence-based information, to provide quality services to both rural and urban areas, with the aim of reducing maternal and child mortality very rapidly.

“That is why the CHEWs had been chosen as foot soldiers to be trained in the first instance to provide the services, because they are the ones deployed to very distant places across the nation.”

He, however, urged the government to make good its promise of funds for family planning services in good time, stressing that Nigeria’s high maternal mortality ratio was, perharps, one of the greatest social injustice of our time.

“It is a reflection of the male-dominated society that has failed to respond to the needs of women,”he said.

Dr Ebun Delano, Vice President, ARFH, said that the training on long acting contraceptives, which was to span four  years, was to involve the trained nurses and midwives  stepping the training  down to all the CHEWs in the country in batches.

Meanwhile UNFPA, Reproductive Health Commodity Security Analyst, Mrs Olanike Adedeji said the body was supporting the agenda because of its belief in delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe and the potential of every person is fulfilled.

 Mrs Adedeji  expressed the hope that through government’s commitment of resources and building of capacity of providers to provide this service, women would be able to choose whatever kind of contraceptive they need, whether it is the long acting or short acting methods.

Dr Bukola Fawole, a Consultant Obstetrics and Gynaecologist, in a keynote address, said unwanted pregnancy is a constant reminder of the low level of contraceptive usage in the country.

While stating that the reproductive health of young people is intricately linked with their sexual and reproductive health, he said universal access to reproductive was closely connected to availability, access to and utilisation of family planning inforamtion and services.

He, however, said several initiatives in reproductive health that employed CHEWs such as in the provision of antenatal care had provided evidence to support their capabilities in providing contraceptive services, too.

Source: Nigerian Tribune