Family planning

This refers to the article, ‘Our family planning failure’ (November 15) by Adnan Adil. Based on national surveys, approximately 35 percent married women of reproductive age use family planning. Out of this, 26 percent women use the modern method of contraception. Moreover, many women have undergone surgery to limit them from ever getting pregnant again. These women will continue to be counted as users of family planning methods until they turn 49.
However, for the effective provision of family planning services, a more pertinent figure is of those women who avail these services each year. For this we adjust the national survey data to include only those women who availed some kind of family planning service in the previous year. This figure comes to around 3.65 million women or 15 percent. Around a third of these women are served by government facilities and lady health workers, another third by private or NGO providers and the rest buy their supplies directly without consulting a health worker. In fact the role of the government and self-procurement has remained unchanged during the past decade and all the progress – some 700,000 new family planning users – was due to NGO providers. Thus, limiting the discussion to government efforts alone tells a limited story.
Dr Adnan Khan
Islamabad