VisayasHealth is a five-year (2013-2018) health service strengthening project of USAID/Philippines implemented in partnership with EngenderHealth. The project provides technical assistance to the DOH through the DOH Regional Offices in the Visayas. It works to address provider bias and FP myths and misconceptions, promote post-partum and other long-acting and permanent FP methods, mobilize community networks for health promotion, and adopt proven high impact interventions.

ACTIVITIES

The following key interventions are implemented in partnership with the DOH-Regional Offices and LocalGovernment Units:

• Increase demand for services
• Strengthen the skills of Community Health Teams and facility-based providers to promote MNCHN/FP services
• Increase supply of quality services
• Improve quality and range of integrated MNCHN/FP services at selected static public and private sites
• Provide regular quality integrated MNCHN/FP ambulatory services in areas of need
• Remove local policy and health systems barriers
• Facilitate issuance of supportive local policies
• Improve training and facilitative supervision systems
• Improve data management and utilization in local government units
• Reduce financial barriers to accessing MNCHN/FP services

RESULTS

• 275,000 men, women, and youth provided FP information
• 219,000 women reached with individual or small group education on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding
• 43,000 new acceptors for long-acting and permanent FP methods
• 420 Rural Health Units and selected hospitals providing FP counseling and services to couples, men, women, youth/adolescents
• 564 trained providers and 74 trainers on long-acting and permanent FP methods (post-partum intrauterine device, bilateral tubal ligation, no-scalpel vasectomy and implants)
• 396 facilities providing at least one long-acting and permanent FP method
• Hospital-based intervention to reduce teenage pregnancy in 18 facilities

GOAL

To improve the health of families in the Visayas region through strategic interventions on increasing demand and enhancing the supply of maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition, and family planning (MNCHN/FP) services, as well as strengthening the capacity of the Department of Health (DOH)-Regional Offices as stewards for the implementation of MNCHN/FP programs.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• Expand access to high quality integrated MNCHN/FP services to help reduce unmet need for family planning, especially among the poor and women below age 18
• Improve access to quality maternal and newborn care
• Increase exclusive breastfeeding among infants from birth up to six months old