Counsellors to help women bearing unintended pregnancies

Meeting reviews 1,000 days of family planning services project leading to year 2030

KARACHI:

Women bearing unintended pregnancies now have access to free counselling and family planning services at government-run hospitals.

Counsellors of the Sindh Population Welfare Department have been deployed at obstetrics and gynaecology (ObGYN) wards of tertiary care hospitals in the province to provide Post-Pregnancy Family Planning (PPFP) and Post-Abortive Family Planning (PAFP) at tertiary care hospitals of Sindh, said Population Welfare Department Secretary Rehan Iqbal Baloch.

Briefing the 21st annual Family Planning 2030 meeting, Baloch said health officials provide PPFP and PAFP counselling and knowledge of contraceptive methods to women coming to major public hospitals.

Minister for Health and Population Welfare Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, presiding over the meeting, reprised the fundamental components of the 1,000 Days Project leading to 2030 that will encompass family planning services.

She said that the lady health workers' curriculum had been updated to train them in detecting symptoms of anxiety and depression, alongside advising on self-care, breast cancer, family planning, nutrition and breastfeeding counselling, among many else.

Dr Pechuho emphasised the importance of education for girls and women as one of the most sustaining and long-term methods of reducing the population and improving nutrition.

She also added that the people delivering sensitivity training and counselling should not be gender biased.

Population Welfare Department Secretary Rehan Iqbal Baloch said the doctors of ObGYN wards are trained on client-centred family planning (CCFP), counselling techniques and electronic client record (ECR) module.

Data entry of the clients has been digitalised by embedding ECR in an existing online website called Contraceptive Logistics Management Information System (cLMIS).

The features of this system are web-based online access, an Android app for offline reporting, Historical data of client visits and FP services provided, covers indicators of family planning / general health services / larc removal, automatic aggregation of family planning services data in cLMIS reports and analytics and client based reporting.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2023.