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| Ambitious RH programme for young people kicks-off |
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Worried about the failure by young people to access sexual and reproductive health services, the government has embarked on an ambitious programme of establishing youth friendly centres in public health facilities.\ The first of its kind in the history of the country’s public health amenities, the centres are going to offer a whole range of reproductive health services including family planning commodities – pills, injections, morning after pill, and condoms; voluntary counseling and testing of HIV, screening of breast and cervical cancers, and post-rape care services, among others. Young people will also be given educational materials around sexual and reproductive health issues. Most of these centres are going to be established in rural areas since NGOs and the private sector have largely focused in urban centres.By the end of June 2007, the Ministry of Health’s Division of Reproductive Health had established 38 youth friendly centres offering a wide range of reproductive health services. “Each district has been asked to set up at least one youth friendly centre in every district hospital and any other public health facility,” says Dr Josephine Kibaru, the Head of Division of Reproductive Health. National Guidelines for Provision of Youth-Friendly Services in Kenya, have been formulated to guide district hospitals and any other health facility on how to go about this. Government hospitals are required to create such centres within the outpatient areas or establish completely new unit for those with enough buildings. Within these centres, they are going to offer what Dr Kibaru describes as an integrated reproductive health services to young people who have been shunning such services due to the attitudes of service providers. “Majority of those we are employing in these centres are youthful staff who young people can have confidence in as they share their problems,” says Dr Kibaru. This strategy is informed by two major challenges the government has been facing. One of them has to do with the cost of establishing youth friendly services, which involves recruiting staff and introducing new services. The other is the poor uptake of reproductive health services by young people. Take the morning after pill or Post Nor 2, for instance. While the pill has been in government hospitals up to the health centre level for three years now, many women are not aware they can access them there. The young people, who are leading users of the pills and the target of the government, are not aware either. And even if they knew, they would not dare ask the staff at these hospitals, for fear of being rebuked. This has left young people to spend up to Sh 100 to purchase one dose of the morning after pill in private pharmacies. Yet, with funding from UNFPA, the government has been able to procure these pills, which are provided free of charge in all of its hospitals as part of the family planning options for women. In this financial year, the Ministry of Health is procuring 240,000 doses of Post Nor 2, with a similar amount coming from UNFPA. In total, the government needs one million doses to satisfy the current demand. Unlike other family planning pills, the Ministry of Health is unable to sensitize young people about the existence of the emergency contraceptive (EC) pills in its hospitals, fearing a backlash from religious groups. This continues to result in the low uptake of the pills. Faith-Based Organization have consistently described morning after pills as those used to induce abortions and repugnant with the ethos of sanctity of life. But Dr Kibaru says this is a misunderstanding of how emergency contraceptive pills such as Post Nor 2 works. “These pills are not for abortion as some people think. We are trying hard to educate the public that they are just a form of contraception,” says Dr Kibaru. Emergency contraceptives are drugs that act both to prevent ovulation or fertilization of the egg, and are usually preferred when other primary means of contraception fail. They are also able to stop implantation of the fertilized egg. This means emergency contraceptives are distinct from medical abortion methods that act after implantation of the embryo. Medical experts argue that since EC methods act before implantation, they are medically and legally considered forms of contraception. The government has now mandated the Family Planning Group to come up with strategies that will not offend anyone when disseminating information on EC. The thinking behind this is to help the Ministry of Health reach its target-young people-without rubbing up other stakeholders the wrong way. This increased focus on young people comes at time when many of them are said to constitute the bulk of those who get unwanted pregnancies, procure unsafe abortion, are infected with HIV/AIDS, and vulnerable to cervical cancer. Recently National Aids Control Council (NACC) statistics show that Kenyan girls aged between 15 and 24 years are at risk of HIV infection than their male counterparts. For every one young man in this age bracket who is infected with HIV there are four young women. |
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| Media Monitoring Reports |
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