Free health service, success story behind family planning - Health Minister

by Nadira Gunatilleke

Free health service, free education and empowering women is the fact behind Sri Lanka's success in the family planning program. Lankan women had access to knowledge several decades before independence, said Health Care, Nutrition and Uva Wellassa Development Minister, Nimal Siripala De Silva.

He was addressing the inauguration of the regional workshop on Reproductive Health Commodity Security (RHCS) held at the Taj Samudra Hotel on Monday (25). The Minister said 'a new dimension was given to family planning in 1997 enabling childless couples to have children and introducing family planning as an advisory mission. Sri Lanka has good health indicators due to the success of health services which includes family planning program as well, he said.

"We cannot forget the service rendered by the midwives when it comes to family planning. They travel to difficult areas and advise mothers on reproductive health and family planning. There is no point in developing maternity hospitals located in certain remote areas because the number of births that take place in those hospitals are one or two per year.

All expectant mothers who live in outstations now come to Colombo and stay with relations or friends prior to childbirth. This is the latest trend in Sri Lanka. Now we have to focus our attention on other topics such as HIV/AIDS, developing reproductive health and work in a broader spectrum in order to sustain development in this field, he added.

UNFPA Representative Ms. Lubna Baqi said that Sri Lanka has successfully achieved many accomplishments in the field of family planning and it is one of the pioneers in the region. About 200 million women in the world do not have access to safe contraceptives. She appealed to donor countries to grant more funds to meet the need of contraceptives of the developing countries.

Sri Lanka is the venue for this eighth country regional workshop to be held from April 25 to 29. Countries including Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Iran took part in this workshop.

The workshop will strengthen the capacity of participating countries on RHCS programming and give an opportunity for countries to share their respective experiences on RHCS with sessions following specific determinants: enabling environment, utilisation, demand, access, supply, procurement, coordination, supervision, funding, capacity building and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).

The workshop organised by UNFPA Country Support Team (CST) is hosted by the Ministry of Health Sri Lanka and the UNFPA Country Office with the assistance from CST Bangkok and Technical Support Division (TSD) New York.

Family Health Bureau Directress Dr. Vinitha Karunaratne, Director General, Ministry of Health, Dr. A. Kahandaliyanage, Health Ministry Acting Secretary Nihal Jayatilleke and Program Management Logistics and Evaluation Advisor Bongs Lainjo also spoke.