PPAG calls for policies to promote reproductive health rights
The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) has called on policymakers in the health sector to formulate policies that will remove all barriers to reproductive health rights.
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The sexual and reproductive health organisation also called for the inclusion of family planning in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as a measure to ensure access to services and information on reproductive health.
At the launch of the golden jubilee of PPAG in Accra last weekend, the President of PPAG, Professor Rita Akosua Dickson, said it was important for pragmatic steps to be taken to promote adult literacy among females, since that was the best way to empower women.
Setbacks
Prof. Dickson said one of the major challenges of maternal health was post-natal haemorrhage for which she appealed to voluntary blood donors for support.
"In most parts of the country, especially in rural areas, people still hold on to archaic traditional practices that negatively affect the health and reproductive rights of women.
"Such bad cultural practices ought to be stopped if women have to enjoy their reproductive rights," she indicated.
The president further called on the GHS and other stakeholders in the health sector to take steps to revamp the free maternal care policy to guarantee improved maternal and infant health care.
Barriers
Prof. Dickson further noted that in spite of PPAG’s achievements in improving reproductive health, the negative attitude by some health workers did not engendered the desired results.
"Some health workers deny adolescent girls access to information on safe reproductive health and family planning methods, resulting in unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions," she said.
The Executive Director of PPAG, Dr Joseph Amuzu, also observed that rising urban population as a result of rural-urban migration and the increasing complexities of issues on sexuality required innovative strategies to improve reproductive health.
He, therefore, called for continued education and deliberate policies to promote safe reproductive health regime.
PPAG
Established in 1967, the PPAG has played pivotal role in ensuring that marginalised groups, especially women, had unhindered access to information to make informed choices on safe reproductive health and sexuality.
The operations of PPAG over the last few decades have been hinged on five key areas, including access to information on HIV/AIDS, safe abortion, and adolescent reproductive health.
Through partnerships with CSOs, community-based education programmes and peer education, PPAG has been able to empower women and adolescent girls on issues of child marriages, adolescent pregnancy, and safe abortion.
One of its flagship initiatives is the HIV/AIDS education programme in the country’s 43 prisons.