\”Cross River State Selected In South South To Pilot Post Abortion Care\”

By Ntem Chris.

Cross River State has so far been selected amongst the States in the Southern Geopolitical Zone to pilot the affairs of the post abortion care and reproductive health services. This was made known during an enlarge stakeholders meeting in Abuja as supported by IPAS and the Federal Ministry of Health.

Making a presentation of the Work Plan for the State, the Director General of the cross river state primary health care development agency Deaconess Mrs Abasioffiong Offiong has commended IPAS organization and the Federal Ministry of Health for the wonderful initiative stating that the idea will help to improve women\’s access and right to safe abortion and reproductive health services.

In her words; \”This is a very welcomed development because this initiative will work to improve women\’s access and right to safe abortion care and reproductive health services by training doctors, nurses, and midwives in clinical and counseling skills for abortion, post abortion care and family planning. It will also help in improving health-service delivery to make abortion safer and more accessible for women and less costly for the health system.

As a state, we will on our part work with advocates and policymakers around the world to support women\’s reproductive rights and increase access to safe and legal abortion services, Cross River State will engage with women and men in their communities to expand their knowledge of reproductive health and reproductive rights to enable us increase access to reproductive health technologies, including manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) and medical abortion amongst others.\”

Making abortion, including abortion self-care, safe, legal, available, accessible and affordable by eliminating all laws and policies that will restrict or criminalize access and ensure universal health coverage to integrate comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information, abortion, post-abortion and contraception through a comprehensive education about sex with informed choice and autonomy, contraception and abortion, and links to such services without permission of third-parties will be of tremendous advantage for our women in our today\’s society.