Child Spacing: Gombe Service Providers call for more supplies of commodities

Health facilities providing Child Spacing services in Gombe State have called on both the Nigerian and state governments to intervene in the supplies of the essential commodities and consumables that give women of childbearing ages the opportunity to plan their families.

They made the call during visits to some of the facilities within the Metropolis, where they have been witnessing low supplies of the items in recent times.

The health providers in the centres visited told Voice of Nigeria that “the commodities and consumables, which in the past were readily available and free, are no longer obtainable, while harsh economic realities contribute majorly in preventing the poor from accessing these services.”

According to them, “cultural barriers have been bridged and more people are getting enlightened,” but they are worried that the scarcity of the consumables is now lowering the level of patronage at the facilities, because some women cannot afford as small as a 50 Naira worth of a commodity.

For the Facility Manager of the Pantami Primary Healthcare Centre, Mrs. Aishatu Umar, the centre faces the challenge of sufficient supplies of the child spacing commodity.

Mrs Umar said the centre collaborates with the Marie Stopes, an NGO dealing in Child Spacing issues, as well other partners, who sell to the facility, which in turn sells them to the clients.

She also said that “there is no gainsay that the benefit of child spacing cover the newborn having enough care and hardly having malnourished children, while some methods help in preventing mothers from being exposed to some health hazards.”

She, however, said the need of these items were making the facility resort to buying from the market and reselling to the clients who access their services.

The facilities visited are appealing to the governments at the Federal and State to intervene and ensure that the commodities and consumables are made readily available, as it used to be so that more women, who are getting sensitised on Child spacing by the day can have access to the services.

Mrs. Naomi Haruna, who is the Officer in Charge of Child Spacing at the Primary Healthcare Facility, Town Maternity, Gombe Metropolis told Voice of Nigeria that because of the limited supply in both the consumables and commodities of the Child Spacing Service, traffic to the facility had drastically reduced.

She attributed the scarcity to the emergence of the Coronavirus.

Mrs. Haruna said “the implication for non-accessibility of the consumables by the client meant an increase in the birth of more unplanned babies that parents cannot take care of.”

She said it also meant more burden to the society and government because it would lead to population explosion.

Also to the Facility Manager of Town Maternity, Primary Healthcare Facility, in Gombe, Mrs. Hajara Ahmed, the increase and decrease of clients in the facility was determined by the availability of the consumables and commodities but since Coronavirus came, traffic to the facility dwindled.

“The facility is one that has the challenge of acceptability. But, whenever we encounter shortage, we go to communities with low patronage and through the focal person in the local government area and ask them for assistance and we restock,” Mrs. Ahmed said.

She encouraged mothers within the child-bearings ages to opt for child spacing,  to remain healthy.

According to her, when a mother opt for any child spacing method, she will recuperate well, regain her body structure which she incurred during pregnancy, while the womb is restored to its normal position, the blood loss is replaced and the newborn getting the needed care and attention.

Some of the healthcare providers, who would rather remain anonymous, said the supplies they get from the government was limited, as such, the ones they get are sold and bought again and resold to the public at a cheaper rate.

They say the move was adopted to get the system running and the items available for clients, who had known the value of child spacing and were willing to pay to access the services.

The facilities, however, said the government needed to step in and provide these items so that the poor could easily have access to them.

Mercy Chukwudiebere