Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Government at all levels have been advised to support the awareness creation on family planning to save lives by ensuring a healthy living for citizens especially women who are the most vulnerable.
Chairman, Benue State Center for Family and Reproductive Health Support Initiative, Prof. Terrumun Swende gave the advice during the group’s review meeting held at the Benue Hotels in Makurdi on Tuesday.
Swende who is also the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) lamented the lack of budget line for Family Planning, describing it as the major factor militating against the effective implementation of the program in the State.
While noting that in the past four years, the group had done a lot of advocacy visits on stakeholders as well as several media engagements held to create awareness on family planning, the medical expert regretted that up until now, the group is yet to achieve success in the area of having a dedicated budget line for family planning in the state.
“The group started in 2015 and since then we have achieved quite a lot. This group was set up to ensure that the sensitization of citizens on family planning in the state is improved.”
Swende explained further that the group has continued to engage in capacity building of its members through the support of its funding partner, Pathfinders and has held several trainings, Advocacy visits, budget tracking and a host of others, with the aim of enhancing the capacity of members to achieve the desired result.
“When we started in 2015, family planning intake was about 15 -17 percent, but now we are on the way to our target of 35 percent. For instance in this state before now, we did not have certain forms of contraception especially the irreversible long term contraceptive.
“Things like the implants and all of that disappeared but they are all back now with several NGOs working on that to improve on the intake but we are going to do a state wide study to see how far we have gone. But by and large, there is tremendous improvement.
“What we have been doing since is advocacy especially in areas that people have myths and misconception about the intake of Family planning in terms of the side effects, we try to let them know that everything have side effect.
“So, we are working with several other stakeholders, including faith based organisation and traditional institutions to gradually water down those myths and misconceptions to ensure a much better picture,” Swende noted.