Reproductive health in crisis - study tour to Philippines

Senator McEwen with children living under a bridge in Manila following Typhoon Ondoy

The PGPD proudly supports the innovative SPRINT Initiative (Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme in Crisis and Post-Crisis Situations in East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific), managed by the International Planned Parenthood Federation and funded by AusAID.

SPRINT fills an urgent need in responding to crisis and post-crisis situations. Sexual and reproductive health needs are often overlooked in humanitarian responses, yet 75% of all displaced populations are women and children, and an estimated 20 percent of women of reproductive age in a refugee population will be pregnant at any one time.

Senator Anne McEwen from the PGPD recently participated in a study tour to the Philippines to see SPRINT in action in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy, which devastated most of Luzon Island and caused massive floods in Manila in September 2009. This is what Senator McEwen had to say about the study tour -

"During a crisis or in the aftermath of a natural disaster, women will still be pregnant, will still give birth and still have babies to nurse.  Our visit to the Philippines, where many areas are still recovering from devastating floods and landslides, reinforced how important programs such as the AusAID funded SPRINT program are for women in situations of crisis or post-crisis.  With the assistance of the Family Planning Organisation of the Philippines (FPOP) and local government authorities, Jane Singleton and I visited many women in evacuation centres or emergency  accommodation. We also met with many local health care workers and FPOP staff and volunteers who are striving to provide sexual and reproductive health services for women and their families. It was an invaluable opportunity to really understand the importance of sexual and reproductive health services  for women in crisis and to begin to comprehend the difficulties in providing those services adequately, whether women are in crisis or not."

Jane Singleton distributing MISP kits to pregnant women in Laguna

PGPD Secretariat Chair Jane Singleton AM also travelled to the Philippines and this is what she had to say after two days on the tour

"Yesterday we went to visit families who live in a drainage pipe at the coast, they had great difficulties with the influx of water with the typhoon. We had to crawl in and meet a couple of families, one woman with five children. She could not stand up. In another place we distributed the first of the MISP (Minimum Initial Service Package for Reproductive Health in Crisis), which are in effect safe birthing kits in the flooded areas. There were 125 pregnant women - some of them looked 13 or 14 years old. Who knows how they manage in those circumstances but at least there is a chance of them having the babies safely… And in Mindanao it is very dangerous but the need is great. Displaced persons camps, violence, rape and of course child birth and the situation just drags on and on..."

Click here to read more about SPRINT

Click here to read a speech made by Senator McEwen in the Australian Parliament on SPRINT and the Philippines study tour, 23 February 2010