Government to make injectable contraceptives available to public

The government would soon make injectable contraceptives available to the public by introducing them in medical colleges and district hospitals, the Lok Sabha was informed today, PTI reported.

"Yes, the government proposes to make injectable contraceptives available to the public. "It has been decided to introduce it in a phased manner starting from medical colleges, district hospitals followed by sub-district hospitals, Community Health Centres and subsequently to Primary Health Centres," minister of state for health Anupriya Patel said in a written reply. She added that the current budgetary allocation to ensure sustained attention to quality of contraceptive care was Rs 77,665.45 lakhs.

While replying to another question, she said that new interventions had been made by the government in family planning and the current basket of choice had been expanded to include the new contraceptives like injectable contraceptive, centchroman and progesterone Only Pills (POP).

She added that packaging for condoms, OCPs and ECPs had now been improved and redesigned so as to influence the demand for these commodities.

Other interventions included developing a 360 degree media campaign to generate contraceptive demand while the sterilisation compensation scheme had been enhanced in 11 high focus states.

She added that the scheme for home delivery of contraceptives by ASHAs workers at doorstep of beneficiaries had been expanded to the entire country.

The ministry had last year approved injectable contraceptives for women under the family planning programme after recommendations from the drugs technical advisory committee.

Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha was yesterday informed that the government would bring out an e-health legislation which would have "comprehensive" remedies, including civil and criminal measures for data breach.

"Yes. Ministry (Health) has decided to bring out a legislation regarding electronic health, data, privacy and security," said minister of state for health Anupriya Patel in a written reply.

The proposed legislation would broadly cover aspects including comprehensive legal framework to protect e-health' data for an individual, ownership of e-health data, legal framework for health data standardisation in collection, storage, exchange and others, she said.