‘Recession calls for family planning review’

Forum 7 years ago

‘Recession calls for family planning review’

Director-General of the Cross River State Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Betta Edu, says the present economic situation in the country calls for review of family planning techniques.

Edu, who spoke in Calabar on Monday over the hardship faced by a mother of six who recently delivered quadruplet in the northern senatorial district of the state, also cautioned parents to imbibe family planning technique so as to reduce maternal mortality.

She said that countries where the technique was imbibed recorded low rates of mother/child deaths after delivery.

She said, “Just three days ago, a woman in the northern senatorial district of the state delivered a set of quadruplets. She has already given birth to six children, while the husband works a carpenter and she is a full time housewife.

“Family planning is like a vaccine for maternal mortality. If there is family planning there is the likelihood of reducing maternal mortality. If we imbibe family planning, this maternal mortality that is getting too high in Nigeria will be reduced.

“Again, family planning will help them manage their situation economically considering what Nigeria is going through. If women can embrace family planning, they can take good care of the few children that they have.”

The director-general also disclosed that the state had concluded plans to renovate 196 primary health care centres across the 18 local government areas in order to ensure universal coverage.

She said the state would use its share of a World Bank-assisted health facility, which the Federal Government was at the verge of securing to improve on all the PHCs in the 196 political wards.

“For that planning, we have a lot of partners coming with their activities and our main focus is to ensure that Cross River State can achieve universal health coverage in the next three years.

“The one PHC per ward will feed the other PHCs in that locality. We want to ensure that we renovate the 196 PHCs in the state.

“The idea is to improve on the PHCs at the primary level in every ward. There must be facility for delivery, immunisation and other health care needs that should run for at least 24 hours,” she said.