Available statistics have revealed that 145 girls and women of reproductive age are dying daily from pregnancy-related complications in Nigeria.
Also, about 214 million women and girls in low and middle-income countries who wish to avoid pregnancy currently cannot access modern contraceptive methods when they need them and globally about 44 per cent of pregnancies are unattended to which is the situation for a large number of Nigeria’s 40 million women of childbearing age, between 15 and 49 years.
The statistics were contained in a press release signed by the country coordinator of John Snow Inc in Nigeria, Dr Adewole Adefalu, issued to Journalists in Bauchi, on Wednesday, on behalf of other partners.
The statement further contained that, one of the ways to check the trend is self-care which provides an opportunity to reduce barriers to accessing sexual reproductive health services and improve the well-being of girls and women.
While defining self-care according to the World Health Organization (WHO) as “the ability for individuals, families and communities to promote, maintain health, prevent disease and cope with illness with or without the support of a Healthcare provider,” it allows people to become agents of their health, leading to improved outcomes, especially in sexual and reproductive health where stigma, distance or overburdened Healthcare facilities may prevent them from seeking care.
Adewole Adefalu stated further that, “this is even more critical at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has further disrupted the healthcare system around the world, especially in middle-income countries. Healthcare systems are now generally overstretched and overburdened.”
He added that “WHO estimated that half of the world’s population lacked access to basic health services, however, self-care provides an innovative approach to reduce pressure on strained health systems, improve health outcomes particularly for the most vulnerable and empower individuals.”
The John Snow Country Director explained that self-care intervention includes information, medicine, diagnostics, products and technologies that can be self-directed or self-managed stressing that, “these kinds of interventions have the potential to transform healthcare by increasing consumer choices, improving convenience and access to health services and supporting efficiencies in service delivery.”
He cited as an example that self-injection of DMPA-SC provides women of reproductive age the choice of three additional months of contraceptive coverage while removing the barriers associated with facility-based care such as cost, access and stigma just as HIV self-testing increases access to testing for individuals at risk of HIV who may not otherwise test, including sex workers and men.
According to him, in June 2019, the WHO consolidated guidelines on self-care interventions for health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, was released, providing the first global, normative guidance for a collection of self-care intervention from a system lens, complementing existing products and intervention – specific guidance.
The guidelines according to Adewole Adefalu calls for national adaptation based on local context disclosing that in 2020, the Federal Ministry of Health became one of the foremost countries to domesticate National Self-Care guidelines as a first step towards adopting self-care as an approach to accelerate progress towards UHC as quality self-care can increase access to appropriate products, services, and information by more individuals, families and communities which means that women and girls will have greater access to their sexual, reproductive and maternal health needs.
Adewole Adefalu concluded that the current self-care movement will reduce barriers to accessing contraceptives for girls and women and ensure they are empowered to make informed decisions about their health because according to him, the domestication of guidelines has set the ball rolling to scale self-care policies and programs in order to transform health care systems and place autonomy, power and control in the hands of women and girls.
John Snow and partners thereby called on CSOs, Media and well-meaning Nigerians to join as they take the message of self-care to girls and women ensuring that women have the right tools and information to improve the quality of sexual reproductive health care services they receive.
The partners with John Snow Inc are WHO, PATH, JSI, Pathfinder International, ARFH, SFH and The White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria.
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