Ona underscores role of private sector in RH services

MANILA, Philippines - Health Secretary Enrique Ona has underscored the vital role played by the private sector in helping the government provide reproductive health (RH) services, saying that six million Filipino women have unmet needs for modern family planning (FP) services, either for spacing or limiting their children.

“The important role of the private sector in providing RH and FP services cannot be over-emphasized. The magnitude and challenges of RH and FP needs are too great for any one country, organization or sector to address alone,” Ona noted in a breakfast meeting organized by the Zuellig Family Foundation.

Ona claimed the Aquino administration believes that access to family planning information, services and supplies is “a fundamental and essential right that is key to inclusive growth and development.”

He added the government is intensifying efforts with partners like the business sector that can help provide women with these needs.

“While the national government is working to establish a national policy on reproductive health and population and development, we are also working to increase access to FP commodities by poor women with unmet needs. The government is now upgrading public health facilities and increasing the number of health service providers who can provide reproductive health information,” he said.

According to Ona, half a million of the six million women end up with unintended pregnancies that have higher likelihood of complications during pregnancy and delivery.

“Poor Filipino women continue to have more children than they intended – 5.2 children for actual versus 3.5 wanted children. This is partly because of their lack of access to FP information and services. Only about one in three married women – 34 percent in 2008 – are able to practice modern and effective means of FP,” he stressed.

Roberto Romulo, chairman of the Zuellig Family Foundation, said the foundation will beef up its programs to help the country attain its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing maternal mortality rate.

Under the program, municipal health leaders undergo training to “deepen their understanding of health, initiate health programs in their communities, strengthen health-related institutions and rally their constituents’ support behind these health initiatives.”

According to Romulo, the first three batches of 30 partner-municipalities have made “significant strides in improving the health outcomes in their communities.”

The second batch of partner-municipalities  include Cajidiocan, Magdiwang and San Fernando in Romblon; Pilar and Prieto in Diaz, Sorsogon; Minalabac in Camarines Sur; Daram and Pinabacdao in Samar; Lapuyan and San Pablo in Zamboanga del Sur; Leon Postigo in Zamboanga del Norte; and Tungawan in Zamboanga Sibugay.

The number of women who die from pregnancy and childbirth complications went down from 193 to 139 per 100,000 live births in 2010.

By 2011 the number of cases further decreased to 44 and by end of the first half of 2012, the ratio was reduced to 22, way below the country’s target of 52 with still three years before 2015.

Romulo said with the successful implementation of the health change model, the program was expanded so it is now on its sixth batch of towns or a total of 54 partners.

The third batch is comprised of eight towns in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) where the maternal death toll is also on the decline.

“Sustaining the gains on health in this part of the country is important in the light of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front-Philippine government peace agreement and roadmap. We hope that when ARMM becomes Bangsamoro by 2016, the local governments will not just reap the benefits of peace, but also the dividends of a better health,” Romulo added.