Pacific nations to improve access to sexual health info

Transcript

Five Pacific nations that face a high level of teenage pregnancy are looking to improve the access to sexual health information for young people.

The New Zealand funded initiative aims to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes for young men and women in Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

Leilani Momoisea reports.

The United Nations Population Fund's Pacific Sub-Regional Office is managing the US$4.5 million initiative on behalf of the New Zealand government. It's director, Laurent Zessler, says they are working to improve young people's access to sexual reproductive information, and the quality of information they receive. Dr Zessler says sometimes healthcare workers need further training to make services more user-friendly for the young population.

LAURENT ZESSLER: It's important that young women are pregnant by choice, and not by chance, and young couples can make informed decisions. And sometimes we see that access to contraception is in relation to married couples, it's a challenge to make sure that also unmarried couples have access to modern contraception.

Vanuatu's public health national reproductive family planning co-ordinator, Apisai Tokon, says the friendliness of the services offered to young people is key. She says Vanuatu has seen success with clinics when young people have contributed to its set-up. Apisai Tokon says young people came up with the idea of how they wanted to shape their youth friendly centres, by working with the NGO, Wan Smolbag.

APISAI TOKON: They have a well set-up compound there where the young people do other things, they have sewing classes, or they just play sports and then they go in. They don't want to be seen as obviously seeking health services, so that's what a youth friendly service should be, in line with young people's needs.

The Solomon Islands Ministry of Health's adolescent health programme coordinator, Nancy Pego, says they are looking to set up similar services for youth in remote areas of the country. She says the high rate of teen pregnancy and STIs in the country, shows young people are not accessing contraception or proper sexual health information. Nancy Pego says it's a challenge because most family planning services are set up for married people only. She says they're working on educating community leaders of these issues, in the hopes they can become more supportive of young people's access to contraception and information.

NANCY PEGO: I know that it's a bit sensitive in our country, but might be they will know about what the issues that are affecting young people and then they will slowly accept young people to access these types of contraceptives to prevent them from STIs and even teenage pregnancy.

The UNFPF says it's also important that the information given to young people within the education system is improved, so that adolescents can also get quality information about sexual health in the classroom.