5th
Country Programme Updates After more than two years of programme implementation, modest gains have been achieved in improving reproductive health services and making them accessible for women, men and adolescents in the nine UNFPA- assisted provinces. Capacity building and advocacy were the main strategies employed in the initial years of the programme.
Advocacy teams have also been created and trained in nine provinces, three cities, 128 municipalities and nine barangays. These teams were responsible for over $20,000 worth of counterpart funds generated from local governments to support the improvement of health facilities, including the setting up of teen and birthing centers, the provision of incentives to community volunteers and livelihood assistance to rural women. The first State of the Philippine Population Report (SPPR), was also produced and launched, with "Unmet Need in Family Planning" as theme. Meanwhile, the installation and operationalization of the National Population Database Information System (NPDIS) is in progress. |
Based
on monitoring reports, there are a total of 1,612 health facilities
covered by UNFPA assistance in the nine provinces as of April 2002.
These include provincial and district hospipitals, rural health
units and Barangay health stations. As a result of RH training and
provision of equipment and supplies, 27% of these facilities are
now providing RH services as a package where there were none at
the start of the programme. Around 64% of all RHU's are already
providing RH services as a package. In terms of service providers,
a total of 957 doctors, nurses, and midwives have been trained in
RH. This constitutes 41.8% of the total service of providers in
the nine provinces. Of the total number of trained service providers,
95.5% have been observed as providing RH information, counseling,
and services as a package. A Quality of Care Survey is ongoing to
determine if the facilities and the service providers are providing
RH services according to recommended standards.