DOH: Family planning hard to implement without budget for contraceptives

It will be a challenge to implement family planning programs this year because the allocation for contraceptives has been stricken from the Department of Health's 2016 budget, Health Secretary Dr. Janette Garin said Monday.

"We will now be again dependent on donors" for the money for contraceptives, she said in a TV interview.

Garin said that the Department's remit is to ensure that Filipinos can make informed choices when planning their families themselves.

"Kung gusto nila dalawa, tatlo, apat yung anak, the government should be helping them, but if they want more children, that's also not a problem," said Garin in the TV interview.

What is a problem, she added, is that the budget for "the procurement of family planning commodities" is always under threat of being removed every time the budget passes through both houses of Congress, and that for 2016 it has been removed entirely.

This means that the Department will not have the money in the budget to provide poor families with even Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives such as condoms, the pill, and intrauterine devices (IUDs).

"That's precisely our biggest dilemma now," she said.

According to the Commission on Population (PopCom), the country's population is expected to rise from the current 102.4 million to 104 million by the end of 2016.

Bigger budget for immunization needed

The DOH will also need a bigget budget cut for the national immunization program as the population continues to rise.

According to Garin, the current budget for the national immunization program is P5 billion to P6 billion for a population of 102.4 million in 2015. If the population does increase to 104 million by end of 2016, the program will require an additional P3 billion to P4 billion.

"We would be needing an additional of P3 to P4 billion: if you include them in the regular programs that would be around P3.5 billion. But if you include the other regions as well for the specialized, new vaccines that we are introducing, it would be another P500 million," she added. — Trisha Macas/BM, GMA News