COVID-19 Lockdown: Condoms, Implants Now Scarce In Delta Health Centres

Following the influx of family planning users occasioned by lockdown in bid to curb the spread of the COVID-19, condoms, implants and other commodities for family planning have gone scarce at the various health centres in the state.

The Reproductive Head Officer, Mrs Atedezi Afoke disclosed this on Thursday at the Primary health centre in Oleh, Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State during a media advocacy visit on family planning.

She said that due to the partial lockdown, the demands for family planning have increased tremendously, thus commodities and consumable were in short supply.

She said, “We have recorded an increased of family planning users during this lockdown but our challenge is the commodity. For now, we don’t have condoms, implants and the users are coming for the service.

“Condoms and inplants are in high demand. We recorded over 120 people seeking for family planning service on monthly basis, most of them are between 16 to 24 year old, so we are appealing to the government to assist us in providing these commodities”

Also at the Ekiugbo-Iyede primary health centre, the Chief Nursing Officer, Mrs Akpolo Mario said that funding was the biggest challenge, as she noted that health officers sometime used their their money to purchase consumable items.

“The service is free, but the commodities are scarce, especially now the turnout is high because of the lockdown”.

The health experts appealed to the Delta state government to make these commodities available to the health centres to meet the high demand for the family planning so as to control the population increase.

While calling on the government to increase the funding to meet the need of facilities. The health experts commended the donor agencies for supporting the programme.