mothers, the MNCHN core package of services consist of interventions delivered at each life stage, namely: pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, delivery, postpartum, newborn, and child care, continue to be provided in health facilities. DOH’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) has funded the upgrading of rural health units and barangay health stations for Basic Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (BEmONC) as well as hospitals for Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric Care and Newborn Care (CEmONC). In addition, human resources for health have been trained and deployed especially in hard-to-reach areas to provide better maternal care. During the year, the “Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Magnanay Act” was fully implemented. This scaled-up the nutrition intervention program for the first 1,000 days of the child’s life. Another notable accomplishment in 2019 was the implementation of the “Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio” in the National Capital Region and Mindanao, and the “Measles Outbreak Response and Prevention of Transmission in School” with the Department of Education. This protected school-age children from measles transmission in schools and during large scale school events. Challenges and Recommendations. Accurate measurement of maternal mortality remains an enormous challenge for DOH in terms of timeliness, completeness in reporting (inclusiveness of the private sector), and data quality. There is a need to review current reporting tools and systems vis-a-vis the workload of primary care health professionals who are tasked to gather/collate the data as reports. The persistent issues on poor antenatal care and post-partum care necessitate a review of the barriers that limit mothers’ health seekingbehaviors. This should inform the content and structure of demand generation activities. Health promotion activities should be maintained to increase awareness on the benefits of vaccination and inform people on the risks of infectious diseases, particularly measles. KRA 2: Family Planning (FP) Status and Trends. The Field Health Service Information System (FHSIS) of the DOH reported that 7,753,528 women of reproductive age (WRA) used modern FP methods in 2019 of which 338,674 were new acceptors. However, this only reflects FP figures from public service delivery points and does not include FP use outside of the Program. While current use and drop-outs considerably improved in 2019, new acceptors remained flat over the years. In fact in 2019, the number of new acceptors declined by 236,253 in 2019. Based on the NDHS, health concerns and fear of side effects remain as the most common reasons for non-acceptance and dropping out of a method, respectively. Interventions. In 2019, the DOH undertook a paradigm shift in its Family Planning (FP) programming -- from targeting “married women only” to “all women”. Hence, from 65 percent (married women), the target has been adjusted to 30 percent (all women) by year 2022. In terms of ensuring availability of adequate FP commodities, DOH and POPCOM, with support from USAID, drafted the Procurement Supply Chain Management (PSCM) National Strategic Plan. Once approved, the Philippines will be one of a few countries to have fully developed a National Strategic Plan that would guide the optimization of all PSCM components at different levels of the supply chain. A PSCM Team (Bureau) under the leadership of an undersecretary was also established and is now fully functional. The PSCM Team will take on full stewardship of the PSCM cycle including product selection, quantification, procurement, warehousing, distribution, among others. Meanwhile, demand generation activities reached a total of 1,886,505 couples/individuals. These activities generated a total of 365,215 identified unmet need for family planning and 258,459 (70%) referred/served. Challenges and Recommendations. The FHSIS covers only the public sector and does not account for FP use outside the program, thus, is not considered a “true” prevalence, rather accounts 15 2019 Annual Report Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012

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