Women in Jigawa state have expressed concern over being out of stock of family planning services at health facilities across the state.
They raised the concern at the budget review for the family planning organized by Jigawa Maternal and Accountability Forum (JIMAF) supported by Women’s Integrated Services for Health WISH held at the Manpower Development Institute, Dutse.
Malama Hauwa, one of the participants, stated that the demand has increased due to the higher level of FP awareness campaign, resulting in commodity shortages across the state.
She explained that most women are referring to Private Patent Medical Vendors for the services, thereby increasing the chances of maternal mortality in the state.
Another participant, Halima, said women in Jigawa state no longer go to hospitals for Family Planning due to its scarcity.
She called on the state government to consider yearly increases in family planning allocation and releases to cater to the needs of 13% of women of reproductive health who require the service.
Earlier, while presenting the budget analysis on FP, a resource person, Isah Mustapha, said the commodity’s scarcity is associated with inadequate budget provision and releases for many years.
He said,” From 2016 to 2019, there was no budget provision for family planning while In 2020 N10m, 2021 N20m, 2022 N20m and 2023 N35m were allocated to family planning.”
He explained that the state allocation to FP is grossly inadequate, but still, government releases could be more encouraging.
“No release in 2020, N7.628m in 2021, N23m in 2022, and no release in the second quarter of 2023.”
Mustapha noted that the stock of FP services in PHCs may hamper the high demand by community members.
According to MICs survey 2021, the total fertility rate of Jigawa dropped to about 7.6 in 2023 from about 8.6 in 2015, and the modern contraceptive prevalence rate was above one per cent in 2015 but reached 3.5 per cent in 2023.