CHANGES IMPROVE EFFICIENCY OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES

Departmental mergers help officials to redefine their roles

For most of her 13 years as a grassroots family planning officer, Wang Wanhui’s main task has been to discourage her fellow villagers from having more children than the law allowed. Now, her role is changing. “Before the universal second-child policy was adopted in 2016, my job was to emphasize pregnancy management and population control,” said Wang, who works in Longjing, a village in the township of Dongfeng in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province.

“Women who had already given birth had to use contraceptive measures, such as intrauterine devices, and we asked them to have checkups every three months to make sure the devices were intact.”

Wang’s work priorities began to change several years ago in response to the gradual relaxation of the family planning policy. However, the biggest change came in early 2016.

“The adoption of the second-child policy saw the number of births rise markedly, so the major task of family planning workers in our town became the provision of healthcare services for pregnant women, especially in high-risk cases, to ensure their safety,” she said.

Sixteen women in Long jing got pregnant in 2016, but last year the number was 26, including two high-risk cases: a 35-year-old, and a woman who had previously given birth via a cesarean section, making her vulnerable to complications such as a ruptured womb or premature birth.

“I spend most of my time keeping track of pregnant women who are close to giving birth, reminding them to visit the health center in Dongfeng for checkups and asking them to come to my office to pick up free doses of folic acid,” Wang said. Folic acid can help prevent neural tube defects.

“I also help them to register online so they can get benefits such as free checkups and higher reimbursement for certain services during and after pregnancy. My workload is heavy because the village doctor and I are the only people available for the whole village, and we would face disciplinary proceedings if someone died during pregnancy or childbirth.”

Couples in Beijing who have a third child without permission will face fines as much as three times the average disposable income the previous year, according to a regulation issued by the municipal government in July.

Urbanites and people living in rural areas will be fined based on the average disposable income in their home areas.

Those who have more than three children without permission will be fined for every child over the number permitted by law, the regulation stated.

In 2016, the average disposable income of city dwellers was about 57,000 yuan ($8,790), while the figure for rural residents was 22,300 yuan, according to the Beijing Bureau of Statistics.

Under the revised Family Planning Law of 2016, all couples are allowed to have two children, but provincial governments have the power to formulate regulations that allow specific groups to have more.

Some couples in Beijing are allowed to have three children, such as those who have one child certified as having non-congenital disabilities and certain couples where a partner has remarried, according to a regulation on family planning adopted in the capital in March 2016.

The July regulation will see violators pay lower fines than before.

Under a regulation adopted in the capital in 2002, couples with more than one child faced fines of up to 10 times the average disposable income for the previous year. However, if their disposable income was higher than the city average in the previous year they would face fines up to 10 times their disposable income in that year.

Many regions and cities updated their regulations following the implementation of the second-child policy in 2016, with fines varying from place to place.

For example, in Liaoning province, urban residents who have an unauthorized child face fines of up to 10 times the previous year’s average disposable income in their place of residence.

Many regions and cities specify additional punishments for government employees who break the laws on childbirth, while in some places, such as the provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Hubei, government employees also face being dismissed from their jobs.