Crisis centers established for family planning
JAKARTA (JP): The state minister of population is setting up crisis centers to monitor the family planning program throughout the country, an official said Tuesday.
Maswar Noerdin, first assistant of State Minister of Population told The Jakarta Post their jobs will include the supervision of distribution of contraceptives, data gathering of family planning participants, and providing information and holding various trainings for the people.
"We realized possibilities of abuse as the ministry has gathered huge donations from various donor countries," Maswar said.
He was speaking after a symbolic presentation of a US$352,010 grant from the Japanese government, by Japanese envoy Takao Kawakami. The grant was allocated to seven non-governmental organizations providing health services.
Donations so far have also included free contraceptives apart from various health programs and trainings.
An example of abuse of such donations, Maswar said, was the ministry's findings that free contraceptives were being sold in markets in Bengkulu province, southern Sumatra.
Antara quoted him on Monday as saying that several type of pills such as mycrogynon, microgynon, nordette, planotob and microdial along with injectable supplies were missing from the local community health centers, forcing the family planning participants to buy the contraceptives in nearby drug stores.
Therefore, a joint monitoring team by the ministry and foreign donors would be established to avoid further wrongdoings, he added. "But we cannot rush things as we have to wait for further reports. We have just started this cooperation.
"Preventive action, however, is needed. The monitoring chain will range from provinces to community health centers," Maswar added.
Minister Ida Bagus Oka promised to run routine market operation among others to ensure that contraceptives were available and that free ones were not sold.
The institutions to receive the grant from Japan were the Indonesian Red Cross, the Mitra Mulia Foundation in Central Kalimantan, the Hasan Sadikin hospital in Bandung, West Java, the Bintang Pancasila Foundation in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, the Sasana Husada Foundation in North Sumatra and the Sangata village in East Kalimantan handling the conservation of orang utans.
The ministry is set to receive aid of some Rp 400 billion donation in the 1999/2000 fiscal year to support the family planning program here, Rp 107 billion of which is foreign loan.
The 10 foreign donators apart from Japan are from the United Nations Population Fund, the United States Agency for International Development, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, Canadian International Development Agency, AusAID or Australian Agency for International Development, and the European Commission.
UNFPA, for instance, has delivered 47,000 implants and 3.4 million injectables worth a total of US$3 million.
"We're lobbying other countries to support family planning in Indonesia... because there is a tendency of participants' dropouts amid the crisis," Nesim Tumkaya, Indonesia representative of UNFPA, said.
He also said UNFPA already had a control mechanism of the distribution of the contraceptives through coordination with the ministry and other non-government organizations.
According to the ministry in the previous year 40 percent of the total 26 million participants could afford their own contraceptives but as of last year only 30 percent could afford to do so, the minister said. (edt)