Nurses Deployment Program Keeps Track of Couples with Unmet Family Planning Needs

The Nurses Deployment Program (NDP) of the Department of Health (DOH) has been instrumental in finding married couples who long to avail of ways to delay the next child birth but lack access to do so.

In this city alone, composed of 70 barangays, some 4,222 couples in reproductive ages have been listed as wanting to seek guidance in observing child birth spacing. According to Asucena Garcia, the DOH-city link at Rural Health Unit (RHU) 3, nursing or expectant mothers going to her clinic have expressed openness on spacing childbirth using methods of their own choosing.

In any opportunity where she can talk on responsible parenthood and reproductive health (RPRH), she will always stay focused on maternal care and the joys of caring and rearing a baby, not on birth control, Garcia said at the Action Center Kapihan sa PIA cable TV program.

Meanwhile, Vanessa Arbiol, a nurse employed under the DOH’s NDP, said that the nationwide deployment of nurses started last year shortly after President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office.

There are 300 nurses spread across the province under NDP, but so far, they were able to get the figure for couples with unmet birth spacing needs only in this city, Arbiol added.

The orientation for this data gathering was completed for the 18 towns of the province only last month, but Arbiol was hopeful they will get the numbers for the other towns sooner so these will serve as basis for the needed interventions. (ajc/mmp/PIA8-Southern Leyte)