World Population Day Discussion: Widen telemedicine services amid pandemic
Speakers at an online discussion yesterday suggested for widening telemedicine services amid the pandemic to reach people -- especially women -- in hard-to-reach areas to address reproductive health and other family planning issues properly.
While the pandemic caused increase in child marriage and also disrupted family planning programmes, it also made it hard for many people -- including the newly-married -- to get right information regarding family planning, they said.
Marie Stopes Bangladesh in association with TEAM Associates and The Daily Star organised the discussion on "World Population Day: Ensuring Choices and Rights".
Prof Mainul Islam of Dhaka University's population science department said in their latest survey conducted amid the pandemic, they found that child marriage was a major obstacle to ensuring reproductive health.
He said although Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) recently showed the country's total fertility rate (TFR) at 2.0, other surveys such as reports of Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) between 2011 and 2017-18 and BBS and Unicef's joint survey "Multiple Cluster Indicator Survey-2019" showed that TFR remained stagnant at 2.3.
There has been no progress made in this area since 2011, he said, adding that progress in contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR), which is related to TFR, could not be brought to the expected level either.
Both the country's population policies of 2004 and 2012 set the target to reach CPR to 72 percent and reduce TFR to 2.1 by 2015, said Prof Mainul.
At present, CPR remains stagnant at about 62 percent, he added.
Marie Stopes Bangladesh Country Director Masrurul Islam said while on one hand many child marriages were taking place against the will of brides and grooms, there was a lack of access to service and information for them at the later stages, which caused unintended pregnancies.
He said the government and authorities concerned need to pay attention to the child marriage situation, since it increased amid the pandemic. He urged the government to launch financial packages for vulnerable and poor families to prevent child marriage.
Due to the information gap, unwanted pregnancies could increase and people could be deprived of expected services, said Abu Sayed Md Hasan, programme specialist at UNFPA Bangladesh.
He suggested that telemedicine services should be widened to make people aware about reproductive health and family planning issues.
It is also required to deploy professional midwives at union level to ensure health safety of new mothers, he added.
Quazi AKM Mohiul Islam, former director general of Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP), suggested for revising family planning programmes due to the pandemic situation.
While presenting a paper, Monjun Nahar, lead of advocacy and communication at Marie Stopes Bangladesh, said due to the pandemic, early child marriage and unsafe abortion have increased.
Besides, the pandemic caused disruption to the country's family planning programme, Nahar added.
Abdus Salam Khan, joint secretary to the Health and Family Welfare Ministry, said they have been working to effectively reach telemedicine services to the doorsteps of the countrymen. He said they have re-organised some of the family planning programmes due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
Nurun Nahar Begum, a line director at DGFP, said they have a designated hotline number "16767" to provide reproductive health and family planning-related counselling services round-the-clock.
Prof Ainoon Nahar of Jahangirnagar University said women's right to take decision regarding reproductive health and pregnancy should be ensured.
Halida Hanum Akhter, senior associate at international health department of John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Mohammed Sharif, line director at DGFP; Iffat Ara, gynecologist specialist at Popular Medical College Hospital; Sehereen F Siddiqua, head of Gynecology, Anwar Khan Modern Hospital; and SERAC Bangladesh Executive Director SM Shaikat addressed the discussion, among others.
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