By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
Society for Family Health through its Delivering Innovations in Self-Care (DISC) project held a 3-day Data capacity strengthening exercise for reproductive health coordinators and monitoring and evaluation officers from the 23 LGAs of Kaduna State.
The training was done in collaboration with the Federal Ministry Of Health and the Kaduna State Primary Healthcare Board, held in Kaduna and the The Fabs Hotel Zaria, had as its objectives the training of family planning providers with the DISC Empathy counselling skills so that they can support women of reproductive age on their self-injection journey and also addressing gaps noticed on data reporting of family planning services in the State at the facility, LGA and state level.
The training was declared opened by the State RHC, Hajiya Nafisat Isa Musa, who urged the participants to take the summit as a capacity building exercise aimed at improving their hands on skills on proper service delivery and that the KSPHCDB is always willing to partner with stakeholders to make sure that health workers at the primary point of service delivery in the communities do exactly what is expected of them and charged the RHC and MEO to ensure they do a step down the training to their peers when they return back to their bases.
She said Kaduna State loses a lot of data in the family planning space and that she believes that this training should go a long way in reducing that trend.
In providing an overview of the project, and the State DISC SBCC Officer, Mr Terlumun Usha, said the DISC project aims at demonstrating that self-care beginning with contraceptive self-injection is a viable corner stone for sexual and reproductive health which can give the woman complete power over her contraceptive needs as well as increasing her contraceptive choices.
He said DMPA-SC or Depot MedroxyProgesterone Acetate subcutaneous is a family planning method that was formulated to be self-injected by women of reproductive age providing a 3 month protection against pregnancy and not necessarily the practice of provider administering it to clients as is commonly seen in the state.
He introduced the DISC project to the participants informing them that the project is a 5-year project which is funded by the Childrens Investment fund foundation or (CIFF) has Population Services international (PSI) as technical partners started in 2020 in Nigeria and Uganda in three states of Lagos, Oyo and Niger States and recently in 2022 scaled up to 12 other states including Kaduna State.
He said in scaling up Kaduna became one of the first states that was considered because of the high usage of Injectables as a contraceptive method in Nigeria with Kaduna especially being the highest consumers of DMPA-SC or depot medroxyprogesterone acetate subcutaneous Self injection.
In his presentation on the Empathy Based Counselling the Business Manager, Research and Data Analyst of the DISC Project Mr Fidelis Edet, said Kaduna State is a state very dear to him and that DISC hopes to work closely with the State and other partners in self-care space like PPFN and MSI to change the self-injection picture of Kaduna State.
He said when providers are adequately equipped with the necessary skills to address the concerns clients raise during counselling sessions in facilities, these providers will in turn be able to address these fears and concerns raised and reassure the clients while training them to self-inject.
Some of the common fears and concerns clients get to hear from clients he opined included fear of sharps or needs, fear of not doing it correctly as client is not a health care personnel.
He stressed on the need for the providers to take a little time to train their clients to self-inject as this would also go a long way in reducing their work load and the number of clients coming to the facility for family planning services especially when the client can self-inject and the provider gives her take home doses to use at home after 3 months.
Presenting on data quality, the representative of the Federal Ministry of Health, Mr Nwagbara Eberechi, said the importance of quality cannot be overemphasized and stressed that the elements of a quality data which included timeliness, precision, integrity, validity, reliability and completeness must always be adhered to at all times.
He noted that data that can be trust can aid in good decision making and appropriate planning, accurate picture of health programs and interventions, ongoing monitoring and evaluation as well as improved Quality of Care.
The State Logistics officer on Reproductive health and Family Planning in the State ministry of health, Pharm Jamila Ahmed, said Kaduna State has done a lot in ensuring that facilities providing family planning services are never short on family planning commodities at all times and urged the RHCs to always ensure they do what is expected of them as this will aid in forecasting and logistics management.
The data submit which took place in 3 clusters for the three zones of the state also had in attendance the State Monitoring and Evaluation officer Mrs Faith Zakari, the State Health Information Management services officer, Malam Ibahim Abubakar, 23 LGA RHCs and MEO as well as other partners in the state working in the self-care space including A360 Amplify, PPFN and Marie Stopes International.
