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Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Social Sector Shahnaz Wazir Ali has underlined the need of joint efforts to develop comprehensive mechanism to expand access to family planning services. She was presiding over the provincial consultative meeting jointly organised by the Population Council (PC) and HANDS to discuss increasing access to quality family planning services held at local hotel here on Monday.
She urged Health and Population Welfare ministries to expand access to family planning services and should also develop mechanism for enhancing co-ordination and collaboration. The meeting was also attended by Sindh Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmed, Population Welfare Minister Dr Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar, Shahida Azfar chief of party FALAH and Dr Arshad Mehmood, director M&E, PC.
The ceremony was aimed at sharing the findings of a baseline household survey and mapping of health and reproductive health services, carried out in 20 districts across the country. Shahnaz said that it was now exigent to develop strategic plans and activities that reach out to the people and added that PC has provided research based evidence in this regard.
She said the mapping tool could play a significant role in planning, implementing and monitoring interventions introduced at the district level. She said that government was cognisant of the serious challenges confronting people in the field of reproductive health, adding that the government was striving to provide better health facilities to the masses.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Saghir Ahmed said that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) could only be achieved, if both health and population welfare ministries would work together. He underscored the need of increasing the collaboration between all stakeholders to improve maternal and infant health. Dr Jam Mehtab Dahar in his keynote address said the government was committed to provide high quality birth spacing services to the masses and added that the ministry has taken several positive measures in this connection.
Shahida Azfar gave a brief presentation about the five-year project funded by USAID aimed at repositioning of family planning services as a health intervention. The project is working to improve access to quality family planning services with the help of public and private sectors.
Dr Arshad Mehmood highlighted many issues including literacy, socio-economic status and access to antenatal and post-natal care as the findings of the survey conducted at several districts across the Sindh. He said that the sterilisation is the most common method of contraception among married couples. However, the knowledge regarding the source to procure contraceptives was low. He informed that the people living in these districts have adopted unmet method for family planning, endangering their lives.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2009

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