By Lizzy Carr, Bauchi
Marie Stopes Nigeria Mission has put in place measures to improve access to family planning services in hard-to-reach communities of Bauchi state.
It also held two-day meeting to develop 2022 work plan to fast-track accessibility of the services in those communities.
The Northeast coordinator of Marie Stopes, Hussaina Maji said the objective of the meeting was to engage with local government maternal and child health coordinators in the process of identifying the hard-to-reach sites and outreach scheduling of family planning services for 2022.
She added that the meeting will also afford participants and other key stakeholders to examine its outreach activities in 2021.
“This will help map out strategies to identified gaps and challenges in providing family planning services through agreed channels”.
She stressed coordinators’ need for proper documentation that will serve as evidence that could be used in planning and implementation of family planning activities.
The family planning coordinator at Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (SPHCDA), Hajara Yahaya emphasized the need for participants to always give update on information regarding family planning services.
“As health care providers, you need to be well informed on FP services and be able to step down same to other providers at the facilities.”
She reiterated that, “creating friendly atmosphere will encourage more women of childbearing age to access family planning services.”
Yahaya urged local government coordinators to work with host communities in order to attract buy-in of the people, stressing that, “a satisfied FP client is your number one community advocate”.
Northern Marketing and Communication Advisor of Marie Stopes, Ibrahim Yusuf told our correspondent that Marie Stopes mission is to build sustainable mobilization mechanism for outreach services that is being championed by local coordinators and also mobilize communities to demand FP services hand-in-hand with facilitating supply of FP commodities to cater for the demand”.
The meeting is expected to come up with an action point that will pave the way for the successful implementation of the outreach work plan
