Report by Funmi Olaitan
A health expert, Mr. Rapheal Samuel, has raised an alarm over the shortage of medical personnel in government hospitals in Oyo State, urging Governor Abiola Ajimobi, to lift embargo on employment to fill the vacancies in the health sector.
Senior Program Officer, Advocacy and Demand Generation of Nigerian Urban Reproductive Heath Initiative (NURHI), Ibadan office, raised the alarm at a 'Two-Day Training on Writing Human Angle Stories on Family Planning' organized by Development Communication (DevComs) Network in conjunction with NURHI in Ibadan.
He said presently the state has 22 medical doctors to man the 33 local government areas and 35 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs), stating that residents of the state now find themselves at the mercy of private hospitals with exhorbitant fees.
While speaking on the topic, "Family Planning: Accessibility and Availability, he said about 38 per cent contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) targeted for Nigeria in 2018 is still low compared to countries like Italy and Saudi Arabia despite the aggressive campaign over the decades by various organizations.
Samuel who bemoaned the maternal mortality rate of 252 out of 100,000 women in Oyo State, appealed to the state government to urgently lift the embargo placed on employment over three years ago to reduce the burden currently faced by women in accessing health care facilities.
He said, "The rate of deaths according to the latest report, 252 in 100,000 is even bad in Oyo State. We met members of the state House of Assembly, some of them said the figure is better but we asked the community and religious leaders who said it is bad. But on our part, we prefer having a situation where no woman will die as a result of complications during or after pregnancy."
He said the campaign for family planning is not to limit or reduce the number of children a family can have but a way to space them for the betterment of women and men and other members of the family.
"We are not limiting the number of children, we are not saying the number but what we are saying is to space your children. We don't want women to die as a result of complications during childbirth.
"Family planning is not a license to promiscuity, accessibility to family planning is still a problem.
"Dearth of personnel is a problem we are facing, when you go to a government hospital and fortunate to get treatment, the next time you go they will tell you that the person you meet last time has retired and the government is not replacing them, the government is not recruiting as they recruited last over three years ago. We want the state government to lift embargo on employment especially in the health sector", he said.
The Program Officer, DevComs, Mrs. Omobonike Adebayo, while speaking on the training, said it was put together to strengthen the capacity of journalists for research based reports on Maternal and Child Health issues with focus on Family Planning.
She said, "Nigeria’s population continues to increase rapidly with no commensurate development in health care service delivery. With a current estimated population of 186 million and an annual growth rate of about 2.5%, Nigeria’s huge population, fuelled by high birth rate without good family planning, can be a huge burden with resultant poor health indices such as high maternal and infant deaths. Nigeria’s maternal and child morbidity is one of the highest in the world."
This according to her necessitated the need to carry journalists along having recognised the role they play in the political, socio-economic development of any society.
Adebayo said the non-governmental organisation whose mission is to promote media excellence through appropriate communication strategies for improved policies in public health and social development in Nigeria, would be happy if the media helped in sensitizing the public on dangers which high rate of maternal mortality poses to the nation.
"DEVCOMS is a media-development, capacity-building non-governmental organization coordinated by experienced development journalists. The organization is a product of series of development projects on health promotion, advocacy and capacity building in the Nigerian mass media and the civil society sector from 1995 to date. Our mission is to promote media excellence through appropriate communication strategies for improved policies in public health and social development in Nigeria.
"The training is put together to strengthen the capacity of journalists for research based reports on Maternal and Child Health issues with focus on Family Planning. We are here to discuss, deliberate on how we can actually write stories from human angles especially in the area of women, child and less privileges in relation to family planning. We want you to do more of human angle reports, in-depth reports on issues around maternal health especially on Family Planning", she said.
In her presentation titled, 'Family Planning: The Catch, Choices and Challenges in Nigeria', Dr. Oluwakemi Sigbeku, said challenges facing the heath sector can be drastically reduced if heath is prioritised.
She maintained that modern methods of family planning are available for both male and female and include condoms (male and female), capsules, pills, withdrawal method (male) and vasectomy (male).
According to her, family planning can earn Nigeria billions of naira when families are properly planned with number of children to be adequately catered for given birth leading to a good economy for the family and also translating to an improvement to the whole society.
She however listed inadequate demand creation activities, poor attitude of some health workers, inadequate male involvement, low women status, geographical, financial access as well as misconceptions as some of the challenges facing the campaign as she called on the participants to help in addressing them.
