01 Feb 2017

Youth Friendly Clinic (YFC) services offered at the Natale Health Post continues to promote notable health among  young people.

Chairperson of Natale Village Health Committee (VHC) Ms Lydia Osupile said this in an interview recently, noting that the offered services are some of the ideal ways that help the youth to introspect about their sexual health and encourage them to refrain from risky practices.

The services include issuing out family planning tools, demonstration of proper use of the male and female condoms, general counselling and several others.

Ms Osupile also highlighted that educational pamphlets and booklets, which sensitise youth about different diseases are also availed.

Furthermore, she said the YFC services is an approach that  has made a positive development in addressing some of the behavioural change challenges that most youth find themselves faced up with.

She said since the introduction of some of the services, a lot of youth have shown interest in making use of them, thus she noted that this helps them come up with informed decision-making strategies.

Ms Osupile also indicated that the issue of teenage pregnancy has been reduced and as such they hardly receive cases of school dropouts due to the matter.

“Although we do not have a fully-fledged YFC facility yet, we are happy that some of its services that are availed at our health post help youth to take a bold stand about their health-related matters,” she said.

Ms Osupile said a reading shelf has been made so as to keep informative booklets about sexual reproductive health issues and the youth are allowed to visit anytime during working hours, nurses and other health educators also give necessary support.

HIV voluntarily testing and counselling are done when the mobile clinic visits the village on a weekly basis to issue out Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs.BOPA