The government has finally involved the private sector to increase the
use of long-term and permanent methods of family planning in its effort
to reach the 2016 target of two births per woman.
Health and Family Welfare Minister AFM Ruhal Haque inaugurated the initiative in Dhaka on Wednesday and hoped working 'hand in hand' with the private sector would make the methods popular.
Experts have long been pushing for promoting those clinical methods of family planning to protect pregnancies for Bangladeshi women, most of who complete childbearing in their twenties with two decades of reproductive life in hand.
Although more women are using birth control methods now than before, a key survey shows the use of long-acting and permanent methods remained stagnant with only 13 percent of all contraceptive use.
Latest Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) found 65 percent women do not want more children and the rate was 82 percent in couples having two children and 90 percent with three or more children. But only 8 percent use long-term or permanent methods.
USAID's Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project will lead the joint initiative to create markets with Social Marketing Company (SMC) and Mayer Hashi Project.
SMC will ensure supply of commodities at subsidised price initially in Dhaka and Chittagong's busy private facilities while SHOPS will train up doctors, mainly gynaecologists, to do the procedure.
SHOPS Regional Manager of Asia and Middle East Stephen Rahaim said they had assessed the private providers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to these methods of contraception in Bangladesh.
The survey showed 97 percent doctors and nurses agreed to increase the role of private sector in such methods, but obstetricians and gynaecologists have never been trained.
Discussing with clients, the qualitative survey also found service providers do not counsel them to help in method selection.
A 'remarkably low' level of knowledge of method specific side-effects has also been found among obstetrics and gynaecologists, it said.
Rahaim said the survey findings would help them 'clear some of the barriers' in creating markets for long-acting and permanent methods � implant, intra-uterine devices (IDUs), and sterilisations.
SMC's Managing Director Ashfaq Rahman said they had 10, 000 IUDs to supply at a rate of Tk 30 each and 30,000 IUDs at Tk 20.
Additional Director General for Health Services Prof Abul Kalam Azad said the initiative would help promote those methods as nearly 80 percent people go to private facilities in Bangladesh.
A Director of Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) Dr Mohammad Sharif, however, told bdnews24.com that due to lack of initiatives, those methods did not expand to private facilities in Bangladesh
Bangladesh's total fertility rate has decreased to 2.3 in 2011 from 6.3 births per woman in 1975, according to DGFP.
Health and Family Welfare Minister AFM Ruhal Haque inaugurated the initiative in Dhaka on Wednesday and hoped working 'hand in hand' with the private sector would make the methods popular.
Experts have long been pushing for promoting those clinical methods of family planning to protect pregnancies for Bangladeshi women, most of who complete childbearing in their twenties with two decades of reproductive life in hand.
Although more women are using birth control methods now than before, a key survey shows the use of long-acting and permanent methods remained stagnant with only 13 percent of all contraceptive use.
Latest Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) found 65 percent women do not want more children and the rate was 82 percent in couples having two children and 90 percent with three or more children. But only 8 percent use long-term or permanent methods.
USAID's Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project will lead the joint initiative to create markets with Social Marketing Company (SMC) and Mayer Hashi Project.
SMC will ensure supply of commodities at subsidised price initially in Dhaka and Chittagong's busy private facilities while SHOPS will train up doctors, mainly gynaecologists, to do the procedure.
SHOPS Regional Manager of Asia and Middle East Stephen Rahaim said they had assessed the private providers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to these methods of contraception in Bangladesh.
The survey showed 97 percent doctors and nurses agreed to increase the role of private sector in such methods, but obstetricians and gynaecologists have never been trained.
Discussing with clients, the qualitative survey also found service providers do not counsel them to help in method selection.
A 'remarkably low' level of knowledge of method specific side-effects has also been found among obstetrics and gynaecologists, it said.
Rahaim said the survey findings would help them 'clear some of the barriers' in creating markets for long-acting and permanent methods � implant, intra-uterine devices (IDUs), and sterilisations.
SMC's Managing Director Ashfaq Rahman said they had 10, 000 IUDs to supply at a rate of Tk 30 each and 30,000 IUDs at Tk 20.
Additional Director General for Health Services Prof Abul Kalam Azad said the initiative would help promote those methods as nearly 80 percent people go to private facilities in Bangladesh.
A Director of Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) Dr Mohammad Sharif, however, told bdnews24.com that due to lack of initiatives, those methods did not expand to private facilities in Bangladesh
Bangladesh's total fertility rate has decreased to 2.3 in 2011 from 6.3 births per woman in 1975, according to DGFP.
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