Medical practitioners have raised the alarm that the COVID-19 lockdown in Bauchi State is preventing some women from accessing the public health facilities for family planning services, which they fear might increase the number of unplanned pregnancies.
A public health specialist, Dr. Naurau Mohammed, at Ningi Primary Healthcare Centre, said immediately after the announcement of the lockdown in Bauchi State on April 26, many of the women who are on medication and injection have shunned the facility.
She said: “Imagine where you have about 100 of them coming for consultation and services, which has sharply reduced to about 30 people. Some of them require that their insertion be changed and for those on drugs, they will need more, but when these are not done, they automatically become pregnant with unplanned children.
While speaking with The Guardian yesterday, Naurau said that government must intensify its awareness campaign to educate more women. “There is need for a door-to-door campaign to enlighten them that COVID-19 should not prevent them from spacing of their children.”
Another public health practitioner at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi, Umar Saliu, said “more messages must be passed across to couples during this lockdown. I learnt some of them no longer turn up for consultations and medications for reproductive health.
“While the lockdown is preventing some of them from attending their appointment dates, this will in turn increase the number of unwanted pregnancies. We have started seeing some of them pregnant already. These are people who must have missed their medications.”
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