As the benefits of Child Spacing gain more acceptance in Gombe State, some women are urging governments at all levels to make the services free as obtained in the past.
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Clients in some of the Primary Healthcare Centres in Gombe, told Voice of Nigeria that although the benefits of child spacing could not be overemphasised and more women desired to space their children, many could not afford to pay for the stipend being paid to acquire some of the services now.
The facility Managers at the Bolari and Kunbiya-Kumbiya Primary Healthcare Centres said services were before the advent of the Coronavirus given free, but since then, clients had to augment the services, because the centres equally bought the commodities from commercial pharmaceutical vendors and resold them to the clients.
They say, however, that the situation had improvedimporved greatly in past months, ut others still need to be paid for.
One of the clients at the Bolari Primary Healthcare Centre, Mrs. Habiba Isiyaku said because of the hardship being witnessed in the country, so many women desiring to opt for child spacing could not afford to pay, even for the basic necessities of life, let alone the simplest of the commodities.
She therefore called on the government and well meaning Nigerians to step it ad provide the needed commodities and consumables to enhance child spacing services in the state.
“I took in six months after my first baby. That made me look for ways to space my children. I took the decision to start coming to Autie Fati for counselling o the best methods for me to use in spacing my children. Today, I have had five children from this facility, with three years interval between them. My neighbours admire how I look since then and some have been coming. However, because they ow have to pay for the services, many do not know what to do,” said Mrs. Isiyaku.
Equally so is Mrs. Karimatu Nuhu, at the Primary Healthcare Centre, Kumbiya-Kumbbiya, lauded the benefits of Child Spacing in her life, saying “If you give birth to many children in this present economic hardship, life will become difficult, but with family planning, you will have rest and peace of mind. It will also eale you to take very good care of the children and your household as well.”
In the same vein, a mother of three, Mrs. Iyami Tanko, a new client at the Kumiya-Kumiya Primary Healthcare Centre said she was encouraged to start accessing Child Spacing services because of its benefits to the body and her family as a whole.
She said the decision to patronise the facility was reached with the consent of her husband, she also encouraged other women to come out and embrace Child Spacing as a means of enhancing the welfare of their families.
All the clients say their husbands have been giving all the support they need in using any of the child spacing methods, whose positive results attract other potentials clients from seeking for similar services.
Mrs. Amina Nuhu, the Facility Manager at the Primary Healthcare Centre, Kumiya-Kumiya, Gombe, said the facility had achieved 85% target population reach in the area, because more clients were becoming more aware of the benefits of child spacing in a family.
For the Facility Manager at the Bolari Primary Healthcare Centre in Gombe, Mrs. Zainab Wali, lack of or insufficient commodity or cosummables was driving away potential clients from accessing Child Spacing services, which was having its toll on the increase in birth rates.
Mrs. Wali said the number of women attending antenatal had increased because they could not afford to pay for some of the services due to lack of free Child Spacing services rendered to clients in the past.
Consequently, both facility managers and the Officer in Charge of Child Spacing are pleading with the government to maintain the supply of the Child Spacing commodities and consumables and also provide them where they are not available so that more women would e able to access free services and to control unwanted pregnancies.
