Women in PAS, a coalition of women professional and faith-based association working under the PACFaH@Scale, have expressed concern over the disruption of essential health services as a result of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.
They said this at a press conference to mark the 2021 International Women’s Day.
Leader of the coalition and National President of Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria, Dr Minnie Oseji, said the disruption in services, such as routine immunisation and access to family planning, have greatly impacted on family and child health in the country.
She said: “During the pandemic primary health care centres all over the country are unable to provide full immunization services. Women have found it harder to access family planning services and training scheduled by so many state governments due to Covid-19.
The coalition also raised concern over poor reproductive health funding, which they said has led to failure of the nation to record any meaningful change in family and child health due not only to poor funding but poor releases of the meagre funding allocated.
“Over the past 4 years, they said, we have been working together as women leaders in the PACFaH@Scale project to pose challenging questions to our public officials to keep the promise of giving adequate and priority attention to Essential Health Services while also addressing the Covid-19 emergency,” they said.
