Lagos health commissioner canvasses male involvement in family planning

Prof. Isaac Adewole
Minister of Health

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris has called on the male folks to encourage their wives and partners to embrace family planning, saying it’s not only women but the entire family and the society at large that would benefit from its advantage.

Speaking at a town hall meeting organised recently  at Isolo Local Council LCDA by the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health (NURHI), the Commissioner emphasised that a well-spaced family would ensure that women will be getting younger and better able to contribute to the economic activities in the homes, while the fathers are able to provide adequately for the family size they can afford to take care of from their earnings and hence, society will indirectly be ridden of unruly miscreants who are homeless from lack of family support and care.

The commissioner who was represented at the meeting, organised in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Health,   by Dr Sadiat Okaga, State Reproductive Health Coordinator, noted that the participation of the community members who are the direct recipient of the various interventions is key and of utmost importance. This, he said, has and informed the establishment of Town Hall meetings at the grassroots.

Chairman Isolo LCDA, Shamsudeen Olaleye addressing  participants at the meeting.

“Different statistics and surveys conducted in the state have revealed that family planning programme when effectively done, can lead to a reduction of maternal deaths by up to 34%. Hence, every pro-active government must adequately pay attention to family planning and child spacing programmes as an important life-saving venture.

“A lot of factors which mitigate against the effective uptake of family planning services by our women in Lagos State have been recognized from different surveys conducted on family planning such as PMA2020, Track20 FPET analysis to mention a few. All these revealed that cultural barriers, myths, misconception, providers’ bias, unavailability of sufficient consumables to effectively carry out procedures kare the stumbling blocks to uptake.

“A major problem is also lack of support for family planning services by men. Male involvement is strongly needed to ensure we keep our women healthy. I therefore enjoy all men to encourage their wives and partners to go for family planning as the advantage is not only to the women but to the entire family and even the society at large,” the Commissioner noted.

Speaking further, he said it is of utmost importance that all the chairmen of the different LGA and LCDAs meet the government efforts half-way by collaborating with the state Ministry of Health in the provision of family planning consumables for all the PHCs under their LGAs and LCDAs.

He also charged the community leaders to become advocates and champions of family planning and therefore help in driving the uptake of family planning services and usage as all these efforts would, in no small way,  help in contributing to a drastic reduction of maternal and child mortality in the communities.

The chairman of Isolo LCDA, Shamsudeen Olaleye noted that the meeting was all encompassing as regards the advocacy for family planning.

“The CDAs/ CDC members are here and we believe those are the people of grass root. According to organizers of the programme, they are going to talk to leaders of religious faith; they are going to talk to them to pass on the message of the necessity of family planning in our national lives.

“We are concerned about mortality at child deliveries, it’s one thing that should not be encouraged. It’s one thing we have to do everything humanly possible to abate. We are not talking about reducing it now but remove it completely from health system,” he reiterated.

While the community members raised the issue of unbecoming attitude of nurses, Mr. Olaleye assured that he would hold a crucial meeting with the nurses with a view to asking them to change their attitude for the better, while he charged everybody there to become monitors of the nurses.

Some members of the community at the meeting.