By Felicia Imohimi
Abuja – John Snow International/Access Collaborative (JSI/AC), an NGO, has commended the Federal Government for inaugurating Reproductive and Maternal Health Policy Documents to deepen Family Planning (FP) programme.
Dr Adewole Adefalu, the Country Coordinator of the organisation, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
He emphasised that their implementation would contribute to knowledge as well as increase access to good healthcare services in Nigeria.
The coordinator, who described the policy documents as a laudable achievement, however, emphasised that over the years partners have worked toward the same goals of improved maternal health across the country, but often times divergent opinions.
He said: “This is because we do not have national direction for most of the work we do and the leadership of Federal Ministry of Health have been very helpful in the past few years in ensuring collaborations among partners,”
Specifically, he noted that National Guidelines for the Introduction and scale-up of National Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate- Subcutaneous (DMPA-SC) Self injection January 2019, part of the documents would ensure uniformity in the work of stakeholders and also beneficial to women being the end users.
“The documents inaugurated which included DMPA-SC Self injection January 2019 gives every partners in FP space chance to have some sense of direction on knowledge management.
“The document will serve as a guide in our work. It makes our work uniform and also benefit women who are the end users at the end of the day.
“It increases choice and autonomy in contraceptive use within a right based approach,” he noted.
Adefalu explained that DMPA-SC Self injection would as well help the country to accelerate progress toward achieving its CPR target, describing adoption of the policy as the drive of the organisation to over the years.
According to him, DMPA-SC will rapidly increase the number of FP users and reach previous non-users when women are able to self-inject and at the long run it will ensure reduction in the rate of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity.
NAN reports that the organisation seeks to promote health accountability network civil society organisation working in both national and state government to make adequate provision for child and family health in the country.
He explained that JSI/AC programme was centred on evidence based advocacy for domestic financing among others.
“The organisation is working to ensure certain policies are implemented and if they are implemented at the state and federal government levels, probably the gain of these policies will be seen in our indicators going forward.
“Hopefully, by the year 2030 Nigeria health indices will witness remarkable improvement.
“Over the years JSI/AC have been working with the Ministry of Health to provide technical coordination and support for the introduction of DMPA-SC an injectable form of contraception.
“We are supporting government to introduce it to the method mix in order to expand options for women so that they can have some control over their health,” Adefalu said.
He, however, urged all stakeholders to put their hands on deck to ensure these documents are implemented at both the national and state levels more importantly the grassroots and hard-to-reach.
According to him, hard-to-reach areas are the specific areas we all strive to give women access to life saving opportunity.
“We are going to ensure that there is a system of monitoring to ensure that everybody work toward the same goal in ensuring these documents help the women we all strive to serve,” he assured.
NAN recalls that the Federal Government recently inaugurated 11 documents which include Task Shifting Task Sharing Policy and Task Shifting Task Sharing Standard of Practice,
December 2018 and National Strategic Framework is being set for the Elimination of Obstetrics Fistula in Nigeria 2019 to 2023, was also inaugurated.
Others included the National Policy on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Persons with Disabilities with emphasis on Women and Girls, Manual for Training Doctors and Nurses/Midwives on Post-Partum Long Acting Reversible Contraceptive (PP LARC) Methods and an Orientation Package for Health care Providers 2018 ANC Models.