Nigeria is celebrating significant growth in self – injection uptake in the country. Health experts were unanimous recently in Abuja at the dissemination of results of the first phase of the Delivering Innovation in Self Care, DISC 1.0 programme, that hundreds of thousands of additional Nigerian women and girls are now making critical choices and taking charge of their sexual and reproductive health and rights through self – care innovations like self – injection.
According to National Health Management Information System, NHMIS 2024, uptake of the self -Injection innovation by women and girls in Nigeria rose from 13% to 40%, all thanks to the creative work of the federal Government in collaboration with the DISC 1.0 programme, over a period of four years. Celebrating the new national average, Director of Reproductive Health, Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Anyanwu Lawrence, said results from the first phase of DISC 1.0 programme – 2020 – 2024, showed great leaps in figures on the number of women and girls in the country who can now take charge of their reproductive lives, through self – injection and in the process reducing maternal mortalities in the country.
He however advised that government at all levels must come together and address noticed issues of stock out of family planning commodities and contraceptives to avoid a relapse in the growth recorded under DISC 1.0.Welcoming participants to the dissemination event, the Managing Director of SFH, Dr Omohudu Idogho said with the “advent of self-care, women have been empowered to cater to their SRH, reducing unnecessary burden for the healthcare worker and strengthening the healthcare system, even at the community level
“In Nigeria today, the wide range of modern family planning methods, especially the introduction of self-injection of the Depot Medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPASC) now allows women and their spouse/partner attain the desired number of children they want and to determine the spacing of their pregnancies” and “most importantly the capability of the average Nigerian woman to take charge of their SRH and better contribute to growing the economy and more importantly living healthier lives”Presenting the details of the impact of DISC 1.0, the Project Manager Dr Anthony Nwala said over 1001 intervention sites were used in attaining the results been celebrated.
At the pilot states of Lagos, Niger and Ogun states, he said the project directly increased uptake of Self – Injection or SI from 13% at inception to 76% at close out this year.
Indirectly, that is working with partners in additional 15 states of the country, DISC 1.0 moved the percentage of women and girls willing to uptake SI from 13% to 56%.
Nationally, he said the project and its partners have been able to move the niddle from 13% to 40%, a feat described by the Federal Ministry of Health and other health experts as “very, very significant” Some service providers in the project states are also chest beating themselves on the achievements attained in self – injection uptake under the project in their states.
Panel 2: FP CoordinatorsNiger State: Mrs Dorcas AbuKwara State: IBRAHIM BILIKIS IYABOOgun State: ELIZABETH IKEABIKaduna State: HABIBA AHMED ALIYUOyo State: MRS FUNMILAYO ABODORIHabiba Ahmed Aliyu.
Family Planning Coordinator from Kaduna state, attributed the success of the project in the state, to the support received by way of supervisory monitoring from the Federal government and DISC 1.0 teams.
“This helped us in facility based trainings which improved our data collection, data quality and control, data entry and mentorship”The feedback from Oyo state was similar.
According to Funmilayo Abodori, Family Planning Coordinator, “we were not documenting accurately at the inception of the project, so we had to begin validation meeting every month as advised by the DISC team and this led to remarkable difference after we trained our data validation officers”.
In her feedback, Dorcas Abu, Family Planning Coordinator Niger State, said the poor statistics of the state in maternal mortality did not present alternatives to it except “to raise awareness on the innovation (SI) to increase uptake of family planning methods by women and girls in our state”.
As a result, she said “we had to hold regular meetings with the Joint Religious Forum in the state as well as aligned strongly with the religious and traditional rulers in the state, especially in hard to reach areas to carry the family planning message and the one on self – injection to the people”.
She said the state used very effectively, community mobilizers in the dissemination of the messages in the state, particularly in the rural areas, “though Niger being a cultural state, we have been able to change the narrative and the results with the results as you can see”.
She however said the state still has issues with data reporting and the challenge of insecurity which reduced the areas the state could take messages and services to.
In all these circumstances, Dr Nwala said the project has worked effectively with Federal and State Governments to drive up voluntary uptake of DMPA-SC self-injection, piloted and prototyped high impact interventions but there are opportunities to scale these up, while empathy training remains one of the cornerstones of the project’s success.
