By; MATTHEW UKACHUNWA, Lagos
The authority of Lagos State Ministry of Health said that year 2018 research estimated that the state averted 167,000 unintended pregnancies, 59,000 abortions and 1,100 maternal deaths.
Professor Akin Abayomi, the state’s Commissioner for Health, reeled out the figures at an event commemorating year 2021 World Contraception Day, according to Information from the ministry.
Abayomi said that the event that was observed on the theme, “A New Lagos, Family Planning, A Catalytic Pillar for Female Empowerment and Socio-economic Development,” sought to put family planning on the consciousness of citizens and front burner of public discourse.
“Women who space their births can devote more time to pursue their educational and career aspirations, and, in the long run, accrue more resources.
“High fertility rates may hinder such opportunities for advancement, increase health risks for women, and lead to deterioration in the quality of life,” Abayomi said.
He noted that over the years, donors and partners have played significant role in funding, procurement, and distribution of family planning commodities in Nigeria.
The health commissioner stressed that for sustainable results to be achieved, deliberate steps must be taken towards creating enabling environment for indigenous private sector investment in Family Planning programming to promote true ownership, reduce over-dependency on donor funding, promote a well-functioning supply chain to ensure uninterrupted stock of commodities and consumables and address other barriers to contraceptive uptake in Lagos State.
Earlier in her remarks, the Director Post Pregnancy Planning Project; a project funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and implemented by Johnhopkins Centre for Communication Programs, Dr. Taiwo Johnson, noted that all implementing partners under BMGF are working to expand access to family planning information and services as one of the key pillars for human capital development and particularly female empowerment.
She said: “As implementing partners, we support Lagos State Governnent to implement family planning costed implementation plan which was adapted from the National Family Planning blueprint.
“Such support transcends service delivery, demand generation and advocacy interventions across all tiers of government and the private sector, creating an enabling environment for the provision of voluntary and comprehensive family planning services with the pillars of institutional strengthening wield into every strands of operations for sustainability through robust technical support assistance”.
Johnson added that Lagos State is making strides in achieving the 74 percent target of contraception rate assigned by the Federal Ministry of Health towards achieving the national contraceptive goals.
She however, noted that while a lot has been done in achieving contraception rate, there is still more grounds to be covered especially with regards to the ever growing population of Lagos State, migration from different part of the country, reduction in donor funding, COVID distruption, reduction in national funding for family planning, increasing youth budge and high preponderance of private sector providers that are yet to be exposed to quality family planning information and services.
“All these parameters may limit the access to quality family planning services which remains a critical issue in Lagos State, as the State strives to ensure universal health coverage for all it’s citizens.
“With the ongoing family planning 2013 recommitment process by the Federal Government of Nigeria, this gathering is critical and coming at a critical time to deliberately involve all the top players to ensure that all loose ends are tied innovatively by leveraging domestic resources, both technical and financial.
“The time to act is now as we need to strategize to actualize the Lagos State of our dreams where every pregnancy is wanted and every woman realizes her potentials”, Johnson said.
