Health experts have emphasized the need for men to be well sensitised on family planning and issues relating to it in order to ensure proper child-spacing of their children.
The Officer-in-charge of Primary Healthcare Center, Eziowelle in Idemili North council area of Anambra State, Mrs Monica Ekwealor, said the sensitisation would help both husbands and wives to be at par on their knowledge about family planning.
She added that it would enable husbands to encourage and support their wives to free access available family planning services.
Mrs Ekwealor, who is a registered nurse and midwife said family planning was “all about helping women have children by choice, not by chance”, adding that women could not do it successfully without the full support and encouragement of their men.
She disclosed that although most women in Eziowelle have availed themselves of the family planning services in the facility, most of them are still afraid to come because they don’t have the consent of their husbands, adding that a lot of women sneak in to access the services.
Also speaking, a lecturer and Doctor of Clinical Pharmacy in charge of the Ward Development Committee (WDC) on Health in Eziowelle, Pharmacist Dr Tony Okeke spoke on the work environment, their needs and challenges as well as family planning in the area.
Both speakers, however, identified inadequate water supply, inadequate manpower, dilapidated buildings, epileptic power supply and insecurity as a result of the dwarf fence in the facility as their major challenges, calling on the government to come to their aid to enable them to deliver quality healthcare to the locals.