China: the strengthening of family planning at grass-roots level
Zhang, Q.
Asian-Pacific Population Programme News 13(2): 33-34
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0125-6718 PMID: 12313217 Document Number: 404476
An integrated family planning center, i.e., guidance center, was established in 1983 in the Qingbaijiang District of Chengdu to provide family planning publicity and education, contraceptive guidance, effective contraceptive distribution, and family planning training for village workers. The center serves a predominantly rural population of 355,788. The center's staff of 6 medical workers utilizes a variety of educational materials to popularize family planning, healthy births, and to inform the residents about the government's family planning policies, e.g. "Travels of Monkey King to Huanjin Production Brigade," is shown throughout the countryside. Some medical workers remain at the center and furnish medical and contraceptive services on an outpatient basis. Other medical workers travel throughout the countryside delivering family planning and medical services. During the 1st 6 months of operation the traveling medical workers visited 11 towns and 47 villages. They furnished the IUDs to 994 women who currently had 1 child and performed 492 vasectomies on fathers with 2 or more children. Traveling medical workers also trained village workers to distribute contraceptives on a regular basis to all users in their village, to follow-up IUD acceptors, and to provide prenatal care. Combining all these components into 1 program provided an effective, intensive, and inexpensive approach to family planning. Due to the efforts of the center, 91.52% of the 55,869 married fertile couples in the area have accepted birth control. Presently, the center consists of an outpatient office, an information office, and a patient room. There are plans to further strengthen the center by using it as a facility for training technical personnel at the grassroots level in collection and analysis of population information. Eventually the center will be equipped to provide more technically advanced contraceptive services.