More than 30,000 family planning service stations in Chinese
townships and counties will gradually use unified symbols and
in-house setups in the next five years as a move to improve
reproductive services for the public, a National Population and
Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) official said in Beijing
Thursday.
Zhang Shikun, deputy director of NPFPC's science and technology
department, said that family planning stations, responsible for
offering 70 percent of reproductive health services in China, will
all use the green symbol of "FP" (family planning) on top of
"C"-type olive leaves.
In addition, they will unify in-house setup, station facade,
personnel costume and improve medical equipment to set up modern
disinfection, examination and surgery rooms.
China started to build up a family planning service network in the
early 1980s, mainly for birth control purposes. At present, 150,000
people work in 2,400 county stations and 34,000 township stations
that cover 80 percent of the country to spread reproductive health
knowledge, distribute contraceptives and offer birth control
services.
According to Zhang, as non-profit social organizations, family
planning service stations are funded by the central and local
governments. The central budget allocated 2 billion yuan (US$25
million) to them last year.
(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2005)
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