![]() ![]() GGR has meant 20 staff redundancies and decreased access to consortium funding and partnershipsĪbdillahi Ali, the clinical officer at the Family Health Options Kenya office in Malindi, a big town in coastal Kilifi county, south east of Nairobi, says the impact of redundancies has been tough for everyone. Another seven are at risk of closures and are currently operating with reduced services. In total FHOK lost about USD $1.5 million for integrated health projects for the most marginalized communities to prevent and treat HIV. Today, Amos Simpano estimates about 35,000 people have access to healthcare through outreach programmes. With the help of funding from IPPF’s GGR emergency grant, outreach services were able to start again but only at about half capacity. In some places the mobile services offer general care, check-ups, cervical cancer screenings, HIV testing, family planning advice and contraception.Īmos said that when GGR hit, the outreach clinics stopped. In rural areas, outreach clinics can be even more important because often no other health providers exist. A patient gives blood for a rapid HIV test at the laboratory in The Family Care Medical Centre (FHOK) in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya Before GGR was implemented FHOK reached about 76,000 people annually with its mobile outreach clinics, said Amos Simpano, FHOK’s Director of Clinical Services. It is not just the mobile outreach in Kibera that has been hit by the cuts other services across the country have been reduced or closed. Before the Global Gag Ruleīefore GGR, FHOK was able to provide three or four outreach clinics a month in different parts of Kibera where they distributed supplies, did tests and conducted screenings etc. With a population at approximately 180,000, Kibera is East Africa’s largest slum, a bustling valley of tin roofs that cover small homes, schools and offices, with inefficient or non-existent sewage systems many people rely on getting access to sexual health services. Mary, who has been a volunteer for FHOK’s Family Care Medical Centre in Kibera since 2012, says that one of the consequences of GGR in Kenya was that it had hindered “getting commodities and supplies like condoms, IUDs” and that people had lost their jobs. Healthcare services reduced or forced to close Clinical Officer Adillahi Ali, checks baby Fatma as she sits with her mother Anisa, at The Family Care Medical Centre (FHOK) in Malindi, Kenya It means that critical funding is blocked for other sexual and reproductive services like contraception, maternal health, and HIV prevention and treatment. funding to organizations like Family Health Options Kenya (FHOK) if they use any money to provide abortion services, counselling or referrals. Since GGR was re-introduced by this US administration on January 23rd 2017, Mary says she has seen a rise in sexually transmitted infections (STI’s), especially syphilis, as well as an increase in unsafe abortions. Over the last two years she has seen first-hand the impact of the Global Gag Rule (GGR). Planned Parenthood and 22 states are challenging the matter in court.Single mother of five, Mary Mukuhi, is a businesswoman and family planning volunteer in one of Nairobi’s biggest slums, Kibera. And his administration wrote new rules, targeting Planned Parenthood, saying groups that receive Title X family planning dollars cannot counsel patients on abortion except in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency. The Trump administration Department of Health & Human Services created a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within the Office for Civil Rights – an entity meant to protect health care workers who as a matter of conscience do not want to participate in abortions. He has called on Congress to pass a ban on late-term abortion (such legislation has not succeeded). He re-imposed the global gag rule (as other GOP presidents have done). He has appointed numerous conservative judges that activists on both sides believe will vote to allow restrictions or bans on abortion. In 2018, he became the first sitting president to directly address the annual Right to Life March in Washington, D.C. ![]()
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