Abstract

PIP: Now that the government of the Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) has endorsed the notion of reproductive health (RH), the current UNFPA-funded program, Strengthening the Management and Field Implementation of the Family Planning/Reproductive Health Program, has taken initial steps to implement the RH agenda of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. The program is being implemented by the DOH, LGU, and NGO tracks of the Philippine Family Planning Program, although the NGO track has progressed faster than the other two tracks in operationalizing RH. In light of its success, the NGO track will likely be used to develop and test models which may later be used in the other tracks. The authors present an overview of what has thus far been done to implement the reproductive health care agenda over the past 3 years under the NGO track. Reproductive tract infection (RTI) and HIV prevention, the detection and treatment of RTIs, syndromic case management, integrating RH into RTI/HIV services, preliminary results, human sexuality, maternal care, RH service statistics and management information systems, and lessons learned are discussed.