Monday, February 18, 2008 Health campaign struggles against machismo By Linette C. Ramos Sun.Star Staff Reporter
WHILE in labor with her 11th pregnancy, 41-year-old Cirilla Paran seemed out of place in Carmen town in Bohol Province.
In a town known and cited for its best practices in family planning, reproductive health, population and development programs, Paran stood out.
Local government and health officials admit that “machismo” and the deep-seated religiosity of their townsfolk still hamper their efforts to promote reproductive health programs.
Several milestones have been achieved, such as the setting up of five birthing centers with ambulance and 12 barangay health stations with one midwife each to serve the town’s 29 barangays.
Mothers safe
Carmen also had zero maternal mortality rate in the last three years.
But Municipal Health Officer Josephine Jabonillo admitted they need to widen their education and information drive to reach out to the likes of Paner, especially those from the mountain barangays where age-old traditions are still practiced.
“In the far-flung barangays, there is still that fear among the people to adapt to change. There is still much to be done in terms of educating the people and we have to understand that changing their behavior really takes time,” Dr. Jabonillo said.
Eight journalists from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao were briefed on the status of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) population management project in the towns of Carmen, Ubay and Talibon during a site visit last Tuesday.
The town is home to 45,655 people. It is a third-class municipality some 59 kilometers away from Tagbilaran City, Bohol’s capital.
‘Popshop’
In Carmen, Jabonillo said they have long wanted to do a house-to-house information campaign but because they have a limited number of health workers, they can only do so much.
What they lacked in the information dissemination component of the project, they made up for in the provision of family planning commodities and other facilities.
The Carmen Municipal Health Office is equipped with a delivery room, labor room, recovery room, drugstore and a wide range of information materials related to family planning.
Visitors in the building are greeted by a “popshop”, where birth control pills, intra-uterine devices (IUD) and other family planning commodities are given for free.
Male clients may also have a vasectomy at the health center free of charge, and will be given a P300 incentive by the funding agencies and non-government organization partners of the municipality.
Condoms, which come in different colors and flavors, are sold at a subsidized cost.
But condom use does not sit well with Paran’s husband, a pineapple grower in Barangay Katipunan in Carmen.
Advice
Out of a job and without proper education that can help her qualify for employment, Paran said she wanted a ligation soon after her fourth childbirth.
Her husband would not allow it or any other artificial birth control measure, which she said explains why she gets pregnant almost every year.
Accompanied by her 18-year-old daughter at the labor room of the municipal office, Paran asks Jabonillo for advice on how to avoid yet another pregnancy, which she fears would be inevitable with her husband’s idea of a family.
“Relihiyoso man gud kaayo, dili siya musugot anang mga pills ug ligate. Unya unsaon man ni nako na palahubog man siya, dili gyud malikayan na maka-contact gyud. Ganahan sad siya ug daghang anak, dili na unta ko kay lisod man gyud ang panginabuhi diri pero siya man gyud ang gusto,” she told Sun.Star Cebu.
Despite the strong opposition from the local Catholic church and other religious groups, Carmen Vice Mayor Ramonito Torrefranca said reproductive health and population management is a priority concern.
Laundry pay
For 2008, the municipal government has allocated P75,000 for reproductive health commodities and has recently bought P50,000 worth of IUDs.
To show how supportive of reproductive health programs the local government is, town Councilor Primo Digao said they even give laundry allowance and hazard pay to their reproductive health workers.
“We even provide laundry allowance, how much more medicines and other reproductive health commodities? That’s how supportive and serious we are about this,” Torrefranca said.
Paran said she is grateful for the intervention from various NGOs, funding agencies and the local government, which helped her give birth at no expense to her family.
But until reproductive health advocates can fully educate the public and unless her husband gets past his beliefs, she fears she will face the same worries year after year.
