By Ayinde Muhammed
The Senior Registrar, Department of Community Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Dr John Godwin, has called on government to make family planning free in the country to curb the low contraceptive prevalence rate in the country.
Dr John made the call while speaking on Tuesday (July 23, 2024) at a roundtable workshop programme organised for the state media advocacy group on family planning by the Challenge Initiative (TCI) in collaboration with the DevCom network, held in Ilorin, the kwara state capital.
The Community health expert, who spoke on the topic; “Unlocking Sustainable Development through Family Planning: Exploring the Connections between Population, Prosperity, and the Planet,” lamented that there is direct relationship between uncontrolled population and poverty as well as health challenges.
He said that family planning is linked to the population growth rate, adding that family planning if well planned can help regulate the population growth rate in the country.
“In a society where family planning is working, the population rate would be organised and slower. When it’s slower, the pressure on natural resources like agriculture, natural resources, ecosystems, and the nation’s resources that we depend on will be well regulated.
“There will be less insecurity, which is caused by scrambling for natural resources. Family planning is that balance between population growth rate and the nation’s resources,” he said.
He decried how the resources in the nation’s education and health sectors are easily overwhelmed due to the high population and called for population control through family planning.
Dr. Godwin highlighted the benefits of family planning to include effective allocation of resources in aspects of nation-building like enhancement of quality education, health, economic prosperity, etc., which he said would lead to the right decision that will help the country.
Where family planning is working, a woman is enabled to maximise her potential, be it in small-scale business or large-scale business,” adding that the absence of child spacing could attract poverty, insufficient resources, poor health, inadequate education, and poor socioeconomic lives.
Speaking on the same topic, Mrs Bashirat Adebukola Jatto the family planning coordinator in the state ministry of health, said that the state government was determined to improve the 17 per cent contraceptive prevalence rate among women of reproductive age.
She however lamented how misinformation and misconceptions about family planning, mostly by women in rural areas has been the major challenges they faced in their work.
“Our health providers in our facilities and family planning mobilizers have embarked upon sensitisation of the people on the benefits of contraceptives and child spacing, among other activities involved in family planning,” she said.
Jatto commended the state government for ensuring that there is availability of commodities as well as health providers in government facilities across the 16 LGAs of the state.
She said that “when the commodities are available, accessibility will improve. There is no facility in the state where you won’t get family planning services. We want our women to access the service.”
Also speaking, The TCI state programme lead, Dr Adewale Abiodun, who was represented by the TCI programme officer, Mrs Sharon Gabriel, charged parents to familiarise themselves with their children and be free to discuss family planning matters with them.
He also called on media practitioners to make use of stakeholders like opinion, religious, and community leaders in society to address the low contraceptive prevalence rate in the state.
He added that we should always engage people in family planning activities.
