The Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP) inaugurates and opens its new facility in Quezon City with support from the Australian government to provide reproductive health services and information to women and girls. (Photo by FPOP)
The Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP), with support from the Australian Government through the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), came up with a two-year project, “Responding with Essential SRHR (Sexual Reproductive Health Rights) Provision and New Delivery Mechanism”, also known as RESPOND. This aimed at improved utilization of high-quality and equitable Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) information and services by the most vulnerable, with a focus on innovative approaches and restoring services that have been impacted by Covid-19.
The strict enforced lockdowns due to COVID-19 had severely disrupted access to family planning, maternal and new-born screening services in most government facilities. FPOP continued with its services in providing sexual and reproductive health needs to women and young people through its 16 FPOP clinics nationwide.
Now on its 53rd year, FPOP presented the accomplishments for the first year of the project in a simple ceremony on August 8 at the FPOP Metro Manila chapter-clinic in Tandang Sora in Quezon City. To mark the occasion, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to also inaugurate the new youth center in the FPOP facility.
Present were Australian Embassy First Secretary from the Development Section Paul Harrington, FPOP Executive Director Nandy Senoc, Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) NCR Regional Director Jackylin Robel, DOH Family Planning Program Coordinator Evangeline Empis, Officer-in-Charge of the Family Planning Division of Quezon City Dr. Mary Rochelle Paulino, and IPPF-East and Southeast Asia and Oceanic Region (ESEAOR) Regional Director Tomoko Fukuda.
The project is made possible by a grant from the Australian Government and administered by the Australian Embassy in the Philippines through IPPF. Australia’s development assistance seeks to improve the Philippine Government’s capacity to respond to health needs that have arisen from, or are exacerbated by COVID-19. Australia’s assistance includes increasing the capacity of COVID-19 testing through new laboratories, provision of personal protective equipment (PPEs) to health workers, establishing community health centers, and providing maternal, sexual and reproductive health services, supplies and information to women and girls. It also supports equitable access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines.
On its 1st year, the project milestones include: training on the Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Minimum Standards for the project staff, development of guidelines to sustain the Reproductive Health (RH) Home Delivery and RH NOW (Nurses-on-Wheels) program, and conduct of health information sessions during medical missions.
The RH Home Delivery is the home delivery of Family Planning supplies and commodities through Grab or tricycles while RH NOW or Reproductive Health Nurses-on-Wheels is the house-to-house delivery of Family Planning supplies and provision of services by nurses and midwives.
The project as a whole was able to reach and serve the sexual and reproductive health needs of 111,000 clients on the first year of implementation through clinic-based and outreach services, including engagements with various social media platforms.
FPOP Executive Director Nandy A. Senoc said that 95% of the clients comes from the most vulnerable and undeserved brackets such as: those below 20 years old, those living under Php100 per day, differently abled persons, the family planning adopters, and those who do not have any knowledge how to access alternative service-providers. “We have pre-list of beneficiaries which we coordinate at the barangay level. The RESPOND Project of FPOP is prioritizing Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDAs), including IP and Moro communities”, Mr. Senoc said.
Australian Embassy’s Harrington commended the project team for an excellent work and assured continuous support.
IPPF Regional Director Fukuda also expressed appreciation for the project team’s creativity in coming up with a catchy tagline for the event, “Upholding Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Transforming Lives” (FPOP@53).
Amid the challenges faced by the project, Mr. Senoc looks forward to continue strengthening partnership with the LGUs to improve the delivery of FP and SRH services to marginalized sectors which are negatively impacted by Covid-19, and giving priority to FP and SRH services.
“Project funds will be re-aligned to cover more RH medical missions to GIDAs. We also need to improve on our initiative to deliver services through innovative approaches like institutionalizing digital health intervention/telemedecine and hotline services while maximizing engagements in social media,” he added.
The FPOP is a volunteer non-government organization registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since 1969. It has 12 chapters and 16 clinics in 13 regions in the Philippines. It continues to support the Philippine government in addressing the high unmet needs for family planning, high incidence of teen pregnancies, unsafe abortion, maternal deaths, sexually transmitted infections (STI) such as HIV/AIDS, and other SRH issues in the country during normal and emergency situations. (Rissa Silvestre/PPI)