Guidelines on strengthening family planning work at the community level

(en.nhfpc.gov.cn)

Updated: 2014-08-01

Enhancing grassroots networks of family planning services

 i) Stabilize administration teams We need to make sure that nothing undercuts community-level family planning work amidst the restructuring of health and family planning institutions. County-level departments should set up offices reasonably, enhance their strength, clarify their responsibilities and perform their management functions. Township (community) offices should be teamed with a certain number of personnel in proportion with local residents. These workers are responsible for promoting laws and regulations, implementing incentive and preferential measures, collecting marital and birth information, instructing technological services, and dealing with illegal child-bearing cases. They also need to make sure that government units, enterprises, public institutions and social organizations in their jurisdictions rightfully implement family planning policies and perform their functions, such as instructing village committees in family planning work and supervising local public health conditions.

ii) Optimize services institutions We need to earnestly carry out the Guidelines on Integrating Resources of Women and Children Healthcare and Family Planning Technological Services (issued in 2013) at county and township levels in a bid to fully tap complementary advantages, enhance services abilities and guarantee the local implementation of family planning publicity, education, technological services, eugenic instructions, medicine hand-out, information consultation, follow-up visits, reproductive health and personnel training.

iii) Build up a qualified team in villages (neighborhoods) Village (neighborhood) committees should assume family planning responsibilities, establish a sound leading group or committee, team themselves with qualified staff workers, and set a reasonable level of salaries and welfare benefits. Staff workers of village (neighborhood) family planning committees, after being trained, are allowed to become part-time messengers in supervising the new rural cooperative medical system, preventing and controlling diseases and health conditions. Government units, enterprises, public institutions and social organization should be teamed with full-time (part-time) family planning workers.

iv) Support community-level associations Family planning associations are able to play a noticeable role in grassroots work. More associations of this kind should be established within new social and economic organizations and migrant communities with the support of policies and programs.

Managing regular community-level work

i) Publicity and guidance We need to promote via multiple channels China’s current population situation, the family planning policy, remarkable achievements over the years, laws and regulations, as well as policies and measures in an effort to raise nationwide awareness in these respects and facilitate long-term balanced population growth. Meanwhile, we need to initiate some activities to advocate contraception, eugenic childbearing, reproductive health and a scientific, civilized and advanced concept of marriage and childbearing. Information disclosure and policy interpretation are also important to respond to social concerns.

ii) Management by law Administration that is efficient and credible should be based on laws, following reasonable and rightful procedures with an integration of power and obligation. The requirements, if met, will help upgrade the law-enforcement approach and drive the standardization of grassroots management. We should streamline the management of collecting social maintenance fees by strictly exercising the practice of separating revenue and expenditure, vigorously pushing forward the certification reform of family planning services, and cutting red tape by approving people’s reproductive choices. Moreover, we need to strengthen the management of family planning services for migrant population while making the basic public services of health and family planning more equitable. It’s strictly prohibited to use ultrasound technology or other technological means to identify the gender of a fetus or abort a pregnancy based on gender without medical needs. Any violation against that will be punished according to law so as to control the unbalanced gender ratio. We need to carry out such in-depth activities as “Care for Girls” and better deal with petition letters concerning the above-mentioned issues.