Family planning: private hospitals outdo public

Latest survey assessment the availability of family planning commodities across Nigeria has found that for every one public health facility able to provide family planning service, three private outlets do the same. The survey suggests government distribution of family planning commodities and services could be better done through private outlets. The FPWatch survey of more […]

Latest survey assessment the availability of family planning commodities across Nigeria has found that for every one public health facility able to provide family planning service, three private outlets do the same.

The survey suggests government distribution of family planning commodities and services could be better done through private outlets.

The FPWatch survey of more than 2500 outlets found private sector accounted for 86% of outlets stocking contraceptives or providing services in Nigeria.

Seven in 10 of them were proprietary medicine vendors, 9% of them were private hospitals and 4% were pharmacies.

“That was of great interest to us,” said Dr Jennifer Anyanti, a deputy managing director for programmes at Society for Family Health, which helped launch the survey report in Abuja.

“We place a lot of focus on the public sector but then we realized there were private sector facilities able to provide the same services. So it is a question of how can we harness this in the time of economic recession.”

Public hospitals comprised 13% of all outlets and community health workers accounted for only 2%.

Anyanti suggested since government provide family planning commodities free, it could push them through private facilities and demand data in return.

“That will remove a lot of pressure the government is facing in having to train staff who can provide these commodities, or getting health workers. They could use the [setup] to solve some of these problems,” said Anyanti.