Marie Stopes International, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) has empowered over 77 family planning service providers with specialised mobile phones in Edo State for data reporting.
Toochi Eustach Ohaji, regional manager, South- South of the organisation who gave the hint in Benin-City said the project was aimed at raising awareness of and the use of contraceptive in Edo State.
“Android phones were deployed to about 77 service providers. This is to help them do data reporting. It is also synchronised with the National DHIS, which means that whatever service that is provided by these our service providers, it is reported with these Android phones,” he said.
Ohaji disclosed that the family planning programme was funded by the USAID, in collaboration with Marie Stopes International, Palladium Group and Marie Stopes International (Nigeria).
“What we are doing today is the dissemination of the Family Health Plus project that was implemented in Edo state, among the 36 states of the federation.
“It is a health system-strengthening project that supported the state ministry of health all over the country, including Edo State.
“What we did today was to share the lessons we have learned over the past three years of the project, the achievements we have made, some of the challenges and the way forward.
“One of the other things that the training has achieved is the training on mobile District Health Information System (DHIS),” he added.
He listed one of the key successes of the project to include moving to the higher level the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) of the state.
According to him, to achieve this objective, we trained master trainers, we have service providers, and we worked very well with the state ministry of health and those of the local government councils.
He further disclosed that the phones are also capable of reporting other health areas, like immunization, river blindness, roll back malaria, school health services, HIV and the rest of them.
“So, it’s a key achievement from this support from the USAID and we are happy that this project even surpassed the set objective in the state, we are happy that this event is a success,” he stated.
In her presentation, the state coordinator of Family Health Plus, Umeh Ngozi Ndukwe described awareness on family planning as still very poor in Nigeria noted that it was not always accessible to many families in the country.
Ndukwe disclosed that the project which lasted for three years in the state, was aimed at moving sexual health forward and to help couples have children by choice and not by chance.
She said the objective of the project which had trained about 100 field workers chosen from primary health centers from across the state, was to strengthen the overall healthy system of the nation, to strengthen planning uptake and raise the contraceptive prevalence rate to about 40 percent by 2018.
On his part, Peter Ugbodaga, the permanent secretary, Edo state ministry of health who was represented by the deputy director, primary health care Oniye Bello, pledged the readiness of the state to sustain the project.
