ADMITTING that there are difficulties in ensuring there is an adequate supply of family planning commodities all over the country, the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday said it is already looking at ways to improve their dispatch system.
In a press conference during the annual Breastfeeding and Family Planning Summit in Manila, DOH Spokesman Dr. Eric Tayag admitted that there have been numerous challenges in ensuring the strict implementation of the reproductive health (RH) law.
“We have faced difficult challenges. And we are looking at mechanisms to improve our distribution and to reconcile our stock distribution of these family planning commodities,” said Tayag.
He said they are looking at possible issues in their courier services in charge of deploying family planning commodities to different parts of the country.
“The other distribution failures may be related to our couriers and so we are trying to fix that problem,” said Tayag.
Another impediment, he noted, is the devolved health system in the country, wherein local government units (LGUs) handle their own health services.
“We should understand that LGUs will have their supplies as some of them will also have their own procurements. But in some, we don’t have a very robust supply,” said Tayag.
Immediately addressing the problem on availability of family planning methods, Tayag said, is vital since there has been an increase on the use of contraceptives among married women over the past decade.
According to the official, the 2013 National Demographic Health Survey showed that 55 percent of the married women use contraceptives in family planning as compared to only 49 percent in 2003.
The same survey, however, showed that 18 percent of married women have unmet need for family planning commodities.
In the meantime, the health official said they have established a call center, wherein the DOH is prepared to receive calls from local health centers.
“It allows the DOH to receive requests or info about stock outs so that replacements are made easier and faster,” said Tayag. (HDT/Sunnex)