Nairobi — Kenyan health officials say there has been a significant increase in the number of clients using family planning services in Nairobi county.
The Nairobi County reproductive health coordinator, Angela Njiru Moki, said there were 238,645 new family planning clients last year compared to 191,523 in the previous year, representing an increase of 11 percent. At the same time, there was a 16-percent increase in the number of revisiting clients, from 274,882 in 2011 to 379,902 in 2012, Moki said.
The information was released ahead of the International Conference on Family Planning which opened on Tuesday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to urge greater global action to ensure all people have the contraceptive information and tools they need to plan their families and their lives. The meeting - the largest of its kind to date - lasts through Friday and is organized around the theme “Full Access, Full Choice”. It brings together thousands of advocates, researchers, health professionals and political leaders from more than 100 countries.
A major focus of the meeting is to examine progress in reaching 120 million additional women worldwide with contraceptive information and tools by 2020, a global goal agreed upon at the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning.
Moki presented the recent county statistics at Mathare North Health Facility on November 7. During the visit, a number of challenges were pointed out as a hindrance to accessing family planning:
- Inadequate and poorly trained staff;
- The high cost of educating staff about contraceptive use;
- Inadequate equipment to administer some family planning methods;
- An erratic supply of materials, resulting in mixing different family planning methods;
- Difficulty in reaching clients, especially in informal settlements.
Despite these challenges, Moki was quick to point out the recent gains in access to family planning methods. She also noted that the county was partnering with private stakeholders to increase family planning access, among them the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bayer Healthcare, the Clinton Health Access Initiative and Jhpiego.
These private stakeholders have joined with Kenya's Ministry of Health to help expand family planning access and options in the country.
