Govt asked to set up family planning units in hospitals

The Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reviewed on Tuesday the audit of the Population Welfare Department (PWD) for the year 2003-05 and 2005-06, and recommended that the Sindh government provide rooms for family planning within official hospitals.

PAC Chairman Sardar Jam Tamachi made these suggestions when PWD Secretary Siddique Memon said that they pay Rs50 million in rent out of the total budget of Rs1,310 million because they rent private bungalows across the province.

The PAC settled all three paras of the department after verifying the records concerned.

Responding to supplementary questions by the PAC members and later talking to journalists, Memon said that the department will launch a “youth education” programme worth Rs36 million this year. Under this programme, students from matriculation to university level will be informed about puberty, adolescence and reproductive health, within the purview of Islamic values.

He said that under another scheme, which will also be launched this year, around 6,000 registered medical doctors will be trained to lecture students every week.

The PWD secretary said that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had recently also approved five major initiatives for family planning in Sindh. He said that around 10,000 “village-based workers” will be trained, and there will be one family planning worker for a population of 2,000. This programme existed in the past but was ended, and is being revived by the present government.

He further said that religious scholars and leaders of all religions will be taken on board for family planning, and a committee comprising representatives of various religions will be established at the Taluka level. These committees will spread information about the importance of family planning among their community members.

He said that a nutrition programme for mothers will also be launched this year. In the first phase, six districts of Sindh had been selected where maternal mortality rates were high. He said that weak mothers suffering from blood problems will be provided nutrition every week. He said that there were 1,100 union councils (UC) in Sindh, but the department covers only 586 UCs. The prime minister has approved a plan to set up family centres in more 500 UCs this year while 60 reproductive health centres will also be established.

In response to a question from the PAC chairman, the secretary said that they also provide medicines for cough, fever, diarrhoea etc at family welfare centres, apart from medicines for birth control to attract people.

He regretted the fact that the government had “strange relations” with the PWD, which, he said, was still being treated as a branch instead of a department.

He claimed that 90 per cent of the population wanted family planning but the department was unable to meet the requirements of even 30 per cent of the population. He pointed out that demographics and the health survey of the year 2007 revealed that 97 per cent of the population was aware of family planning methods, but the “availability of such methods was a problem.” Link...