51,000 women in Borno adopt family planning — Gates Foundation

The Gates Foundation, in collaboration with the Borno State Government, says it has sensitised over 167,000 women in the state on the benefits of family planning, noting that 51,000 others have already adopted the practice.

The representative of the Gates Foundation, Chizo Ezem, who disclosed this on Tuesday at an event organised to mark the close-out of the IntegrateE 2.0 project in Maiduguri, said the beneficiaries span seven local government areas of the state.

According to her, the project also included the training of 442 community pharmacists on family planning and integrated management of childhood illnesses, an initiative she said was targeted at strengthening the quality of services and data from the private sector.

Ezem said, “This gathering gives us an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and how our gains can be sustained and expanded. In Borno State, IntegrateE has strengthened the public/private delivery model and has linked community providers to state health infrastructure.

“A total of 442 community pharmacists were trained on family planning and integrated management of childhood illnesses. Through this investment, over 51,00 women accepted family planning. 16,000 of them were new acceptors. And in addition to that, over 42,000 children received essential primary health services,” she added.

She further noted that beyond direct service delivery, “over 167,000 women were reached with family planning information and about 116,000 of them also received information on childhood illnesses and care”.

She also stated that the project had brought community pharmacists who had largely been outside the formal health sector into the fold.

“They now operate within a structured and supervised system which most importantly is led by the state ministry of health, and this has been institutionalised, ensuring that there is a digital supervisory checklist and referral system between private providers and the public health system.

“As the project comes to an end, we would like the government to provide adequate funding for pharmaceutical inspection committee so that monitoring and supervision can be done consistently.

“Secondly, now that accreditation has been institutionalised, we would like the government to expand coverage from the current seven LGAs across to the rest of the state because currently, only 19 per cent of community pharmacists have been trained and we need to close this gap” Ezem stressed.

Meanwhile, the North-East Regional Programme Manager for the Society for Family Health, Johnson Ekele, urged the Borno State Government to sustain the initiative.

“It is my desire that the gain from this intervention will be sustained by the state government. I am glad that as the implementing partner, we have incorporated most of our key activities into the annual operation plan of Borno State,” he stated.

Speaking earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Borno State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency, Saleh Abba, said the IntegrateE project aligned with the state’s reforms in the healthcare sector.

“The collaboration with the IntegratedE 2.0 aligns perfectly with the reforms of the Borno State government in the health sector. By empowering private sector providers to operate within a formal regulatory framework, we are not merely increasing service points, we are guaranteeing high quality care, ensuring that no citizen is left behind and integerating private service delivery into our health service information system” he said.

According to him, the government has put necessary measures in place to curtail maternal mortality and ensure the safety of children before and after childbirth.

“This year alone, our agency has enrolled over 200, 000 vulnerable individuals including pregnant women, children under the age of five, people living with disability, elderly and people living with HIV. Out of this population, 60 per cent are pregnant women because we want to crash the maternal mortality rate as well as under-five child deaths,” Abba said.