The Federal Ministry of Health is seeking the support of state and Local Governments as well as other health care providers in Nigeria to promote the self care health mechanism to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.

This was the outcome of the orientation meeting on National self care guidelines between the Federal and Osun State Ministries, health Partners and Local Government Family Planning Coordinators in Osun State.

From explanation at the meeting, the self care programme enables individual, particularly women to administer the DMPA-SC self-injection on family planning on themselves as well as conduct simple test to determine their reproductive health status.

In his address, the Director of Reproductive Health at the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Kayode Afolabi explained that the self care delivery was a new innovation to enable women attend to their health by themselves, without requiring the service of any healthcare provider.

Dr Afolabi announced that the National Guidelines for the Introduction and Scale -Up of DMPA-SC self – Injection has four objectives which include”to provide country specific guidance and tools to roll out facility and community-initiated self injection service delivery to ensure DMPA-SC reaches new users and expand access for women in hard to reach areas”.

Represented by a Deputy Director Reproduction Health, Mrs Remi Bajomo, he remarked that states and local governments had enormous responsibilities to ensure that the message of national guidelines on self care was taken to the rural areas where people with limited literacy resided.

The Osun Commissioner for Health, Dr Rafiu Issamotu hinted that government state was committed to ensuring the spread of the message of self care delivery to the nooks and crannies of the state considering its capacity to help in taming uncontrolled pregnancy and child birth among young girls.

Dr Isassamotu contended that many sexually active young girls got pregnant prematurely with high tendency to procure illegal abortion which might result in mortality, while others who eventually deliver of the child lack the psychological and material requirements of raising a child, thereby resulting in poorly raised individuals who become menace to the society.

Speaking on the initiative, the country coordinator of John Show Incorporated,one of the partners, Dr Adewale Adefalu explained that the self injection of DMPA-SC, one of the self care products, provided women of reproductive age the choice of three additional months of contraceptive coverage while removing the barriers associated with facility -based care, such as cost,access, and stigma.

Dr Adefalu said self care interventions included information,medicine,diagnostics,products and technologies that could be self directed to allow people become agents of their health, especially in sexual and reproductive health where stigma,distance or overburdened healthcare facilities might prevent them from seeking care.

Similarly, the Director of Communication for Pathfinder international, Mr Bayo Ewuola added that the self care delivery covered areas such as Ovulation predictor, HIV testing kit, Cervical self testings, HPV sampling kit and the DMPA self injection among others.

Mr Ewuola said his organization and other partners are collaborating with the Federal and state governments in Nigeria to build health systems by supporting them in the area of policy and safe environment for reproductive health services.

Osun state is one of the states benefiting in the first batch of the programme which is supported by the World Health Organizations, PATH,SHF, Association for Reproductive and Family Health and the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria among others.

Adenitan Akinola