Oyo govt collaborates with SFH on expanding access to self-injecting contraceptives

Oyo State Government, in collaboration with the Society for Family Health through Delivering Innovation in Self-Care (DISC), is to expand access to family planning, especially injectable self-care contraceptives for women of reproductive age.

Country Manager, Partnership and Collaboration for the DISC project for the Society for Family Health, Mrs. Jennifer Adebambo, who spoke at the opening of a five-day co-creation workshop with Oyo State Ministry of Health and Oyo State Primary Health Care Board, said that the three-year project intends to support more women to take more control over their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs, including and beyond contraception.

She said this intervention is envisioning a world where women are active participants in building health systems that work towards their own desired outcomes given that self-care, beginning with contraceptive self-injection, is a viable cornerstone of SRH care and it offers women increased agency over their health.

According to her, Delivering Innovation in Self-Care, a project intervention by the Society for Family Health, has been implemented since 2020 in Nigeria within the first 15 states, but in the next three years, it is working with a selected number of states to expand self-care in family planning (FP).

“We want to see that the primary healthcare system has been strengthened enough to be able to provide family planning services, especially the depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA-SC) injectable contraceptive, wherever a woman accesses care in a PHC.

“We have identified DMPA as a key example of self-care, where women have the opportunity to inject themselves with a particular family planning method that has been proven to be safe and considered convenient. It has the potential to relieve the overburdened healthcare facility as well as expand the method mix for a country.

“Nigeria already has several family planning mechanisms, but the self-care in family planning, through the DMPA, a three-month injectable contraceptive planning method covers a woman for three months in terms of helping her expand her reproductive choices.

“Oyo State was successfully selected again for DICS 2.0 to expand access to DMPA services in Nigeria for the next three years. We are going to be working with the state to train family planning providers across over 700 PHCs in the state.

“In this 5-day workshop, we are going to be designing the DICS intervention with the state, along with specific stakeholders, from the State Minister of Health to the community leadership. We will be training health promotion officers on how to create demand for DMPA, a self-care contraceptive.

“Also, we are having a state training of trainers meeting for family planning providers, FP coordinators, and local government council coordinators on the DMPA injectablemodel.”

Oyo State Health Commissioner, Dr Oluwaserimi Ajetimobi, said childbearing is supposed to be a joyful thing, but for some, it is a menace for some women, but the project will ensure that they don’t lack information or access to family planning services wherever they may reside in the state.

“Giving women this kind of family planning has been done by the provider at the hospital. But now we are looking at how a woman will be able to give herself this injectable, which is good innovation. Once you are trained about it, you know how to do it.

So, it will go a long way in helping women take ownership of their family planning so that they will be able to space their children.”

Dr. Latifat Dairo, the Oyo state chairperson for the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria, stated that women, if trained, will accept self-injectable contraceptives since they are safe and effective without untoward side effects.

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