Speaking at the inaugural session of a three-day workshop on 'Basic Minimum Family Planning Content Package for Medical Colleges,' health professionals have said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) needs to be achieved for reducing child mortality and improving maternal health.
The workshop was organised by the Population Council, an international research organisation, in collaboration with USAID and Jhpiego (an affiliated body of John Hopkins University, USA). at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Tuesday. Senior faculty members of public sector medical colleges affiliated with UHS are attending the workshop.
The workshop is a part of project called Family Advancement for Life and Health (FALAH) that aims at improving access to 'birth spacing' for all Pakistanis who want to use this approach to ensure safe pregnancies. The purpose of the workshop is to improve the capacity of future providers to help meet the reproductive health needs of the people.
Addressing the workshop, UHS vice-chancellor Professor M.H. Mubbashar said that maternal mortality rate in Pakistan was 276 per 100,000 whereas infant mortality rate was 78/1000 and neonatal mortality rate was 54/1000, which was alarming.
He added that recent advancements in medical sciences could not be introduced in Pakistan because people were reluctant to change. "The UHS had already introduced reproductive health in the curriculum from the first year in affiliated medical colleges," he said.
The planners now need to move beyond the "Two children; happy family", he said, adding, "It is time to confront the fears associated with the use of contraceptives. Education and sufficient information is needed to allow people to make choices," he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Punjab Health Secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad admitted that due to lack of firm commitment on the part of the government, the efforts to implement family planning and to promote reproductive health have been inconsistent so far. "Most of the medical officers, even senior medical officers, working in rural areas are unaware of the basic concepts of reproductive health," he said.
"Focusing only on infrastructure is inadequate. With this attitude towards population control, it would be impossible to achieve MDGs by 2015," he warned. He was of the view that efforts were needed to engage civil society, social activists and academia more closely in the debate for lowering fertility as a means for improving maternal and infant health indicators.
The Punjab government had increased the budgetary allocation for health sector from Rs 10 billion to Rs 40 billion in last two and a half year, he said, adding, "It has been made mandatory for medical officers working in rural areas to work three days a week in the field with Lady Health Workers (LHWs) and Community Midwives (CMWs) so as to engage them in preventive activities."
Supporting the FALAH project initiative of introducing birth spacing as a mean to improve family health, Fawad said that it was something, which the public sector should have done long time ago.
FALAH's chief, Dr Ali Mohammad Mir said that under the project 11,000 health workers had so far been trained to provide quality reproductive health, including family planning services. He said the project is aimed at promoting family planning practices for the betterment of people, particularly women and children.
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