DOH vows adequate supply of contraceptives
The Department of Health (DOH) will address the shortage of contraceptives in the public sector to prevent unwanted pregnancies and support President Duterte’s proposal for each family to have only three children.
The DOH said about 22 percent of women of reproductive health have “unmet needs” for family planning.
“So women in this country have more children than they want. The desired number of children is not achieved,” Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said in press briefing yesterday.
“The three- child policy that the President has mentioned is actually a statistic that we hold. That it is the average number of children that women of reproductive age want. It is actually 2.7. So three is a round-off number,” she explained.
Ubial said the DOH would ensure “that the unmet needs for family planning becomes zero.” But this is not easy because the responsible parenthood and reproductive health programs of the DOH are facing various challenges.
Currently, the DOH is facing two temporary restrain- ing orders (TROs) issued by the Supreme Court.
One TRO stopped the DOH from administering contraceptive implants. The other TRO stopped the Food and Drug Administration under DOH from renewing the licenses of all contraceptives once they expire, raising fears that supplies will run out by 2017 if the order will not be lifted.
“But rest assured we will call all sectors. We believe everyone should be involved in ensuring the health and wellbeing of our people. Not just health workers. So we will call all sectors, including the Church and other faith-based groups, to help us attain the desired number of children of each family,” Ubial said.
Ubial also gave assurance that the DOH respects the rights of the couple to choose the size of family that they want to have.
“We will support them in attaining their desired number of children. What is important for us in the DOH, as an agency, is (birth) spacing,” she said.
The health of mothers and children is “optimized or ideal if the spacing of births is three to five years,” she explained.