‘The subject `family planning' is similar to a bomb when it comes to Sri Lanka because various parties interpret it in various ways. But the real meaning of family planning is not limiting the number of children in a family’, Acting Director General of Health Services Dr. J.M.W.Jayasundara Bandara said.
Addressing a health seminar held at the Health Education Bureau in Colombo today he said that since ancient times, rich and educated families in Sri Lanka did not have many children.
‘Ancient Sinhala kings and their Ministers had only two or three children. Only poor and illiterate people who were engaged in odd jobs had several children in their families’, Dr. Bandara said.
Furthermore he said that the Representative of UNFPA in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Ritsu Naken have said that Sri Lanka has good indicators when it comes to family planning and stand ahead of other countries in the region such as India and Pakistan. But still the young people in Sri Lanka have relatively low knowledge on reproductive health.
Meanwhile the Consultant doctors who delivered lectures during the seminar said that in 2015 there were 113 maternal deaths in Sri Lanka and 23 percent of them had occurred due to unmet needs related to family planning. Around 7.3 percent of currently married women had an unmet need for family planning which contributes to maternal deaths.