Expert decries more women paying for family planning services in Lagos

NaijaAgroNet:

Reproductive health expert has decried the rising charges on women seeking family planning in Lagos State, and called for more funding to health sector to help cushion the effect, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The co-Principal Investigator for the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020), Dr. Funmi OlaOlorun, expressed her displeasure in Lagos, over the charges on women in need of family planning services, saying this has been on the rise as more women get involved.

Lagos, which has about 112 service delivery points, she said, change fees on family planning, with the points estimated at 65 public and 47 private facilities, which represents 26.2 and 10.6 per cents respectively in public and private clinics.

Family planning indicators, she said, must cut across, calling upon government and all well-meaning investors, to allocate more funds on consumables and logistics to ensure improved impact on family planning programmes, and reduce the charges even though its prevalent in both public and private clinical facilities.

Dr. Olaolorun while sharing the scorecard on the per cent of public and private clinical facilities alongside the offering and current in and out of stock by methods survey in Lagos, told NaijaAgroNet that government could also offer vouchers to the poorest women by using an equity approach and graded billing system.

Other Family Planning Indicators, she pointed out to include access, equity, quality and choice, just as out of the seven states sampled, consisting of 302 Enumeration Areas (EA), Lagos State had 52.

The programme, NaijaAgroNet recalls was supported by the Federal Ministry of Health, National Population Commission, National Bureau of Statistics, Lagos State Ministry of Health , Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health (Johns Hopkins University) as well as Pathfinder International and was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Uj. N. Dominic/GEE

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Maternal death: Zambian Minister decries death of journalist, Sithe Zulu, triggers review

NaijaAgroNet:

The Zambian Minister of Health, Dr Chitalu Chilufya, has decried the rate of maternal death recorded at Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital on the 10th of September 2017, following the demise of a journalist with Zambia Daily Mail, Sithembile Siwawa-Zulu, reports NaijaAgroNet.

In a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet, the Head Communications and External Relations at the Ministry, Stanslous Ngosa, quoted Dr Chilufya as expressing profound shock by this turn of events, declaring that “even one maternal death is too many.”

The Minister also ordered for a thorough maternal death case review, as well as a postmortem to determine the precise cause of death.

“All procedures should be done on the deceased and scrutinised to ascertain the possible events that could have led to her death,” Dr Chilufya said.

According to the MoH Spokesperson Dr Maximilian Bweupe, the deceased, Sithe was 29 years old, in her 2nd pregnancy when she underwent a caesarian section due to fetal distress on the 8th September 2017.

“Fetal distress is when the fetus does not receive adequate amounts of oxygen during pregnancy or labour. It is oftentimes detected through an abnormal fetal heart rate,” Dr. Bweupe explained.

As said by Bweupe, the deceased became breathless after taking a bath on Sunday morning, after, which the condition rapidly deteriorated before she passed on despite efforts to resuscitate her.

“Meanwhile, the Minister has offered utmost condolences to the bereaved family, friends, and the media fraternity. May her soul rest in eternal peace,” Bweupe prayed.

Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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