Editorial
Family planning in trouble
Address the service delivery problem
Either we are resigned to the declining trend of success in the family planning drive or are unable to turn the ebb around. According to the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2007, the gap between demand and availability of family planning methods is yawning. While in 2004 it was 11 percent, in 2007 it worsened to 18 percent. People's eagerness to adopt contraceptive methods far outstrips the availability of contraceptives. At the current rate, the unmet demand is likely to rise to 40 percent in the next 15 years, jeopardising the fulfilment of MDGs in terms of not merely containment of population but also halving the incidence of poverty by 2015.
The previous practice of motivating couples about planned parenthood and distributing short-term contraceptives through door to door visits has been virtually abandoned with the lid put on recruitment of family welfare assistants (FWA) over the last decade. The FWAs were also instrumental in taking people to family welfare centres and have them adopt long-term contraceptive methods. Whatever family welfare assistants remain on the roll were distracted by other calls such as their assignment with EPI, birth registration and voter enrolment.
The answer lies in filling the 2100 vacant posts of FWA and making the entire field workforce concentrate on family planning tasks and reproductive health.
The campaign that was at its peak in early 1980s has taken a long dip over the last two decades. It has to be resuscitated rather than resting on the laurels of past success. The baseline of the fertile population is already high and that is where we have to have programmes to shore up the family planning efforts. Basically, improvement of door-to-door service needs to be complemented through supply of oral and other forms of contraceptives.
All this calls for a radical change in the attitude of lip-service being given to the family planning sector by the bureaucracy and government. We believe an impetus could be provided to the lackadaisical family planning campaign if the NGOs can be involved in it.
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