Anne: We want to have empathy with the difficulties that the providers are dealing with in this situation and context in which these [family planning] services are being provided. If those opportunities for more client-centered comprehensive care are seized, it has a multiplier effect in terms of peace of mind that a woman’s voluntary family planning needs are met. It’s time well-invested for both the mother and the baby in terms of postpartum family planning. In terms of postabortion care, it’s time well-invested in terms of reducing a woman’s risk of having another unintended pregnancy. So the idea that effort now pays dividends later and reduces more closely spaced pregnancies that add more burden to the health system and the health worker.
Eva: I second that. Effort now and dividends later. If we’re trying to inspire a younger person who’s new to this field, whether it’s a provider or someone working in our groups, I say, if you have a creative solution, now is the time to put it forth. We’re so open to hearing innovation and creativity right now because this is unprecedented. And we need to play the long game in the sense that the big dividends are not going to be tomorrow but are going to come.
Saumya: It’s an innovation mindset that we’re creating. When we wrote this paper, we came from a place of optimism of “how to build back better.”
Eva: Yes! We’re always going to be in the midst of pregnant women and delivering women and women who need miscarriage management and postabortion care. So, let’s harness the creativity and innovation now.
Anne: I would agree with you on optimism in the sense of let’s seize that window of opportunity. But operationally, it’s not necessarily easy especially at scale, so I don’t want to underappreciate that it will take leadership at the facility level, district level, and in the private sector. I think there’s a slew of challenges. The innovation that needs to be applied to those problems is fully welcome now perhaps more so than in normal times.
Saumya: The second thing we learned is the agility of health systems to move and pivot. Even in those weak health systems that we’ve always thought of, some of them are beginning to show that they can pivot pretty quickly. I think that might have come from those investments in the past around health systems strengthening or around epidemic response that’s paying off. It validates the assumption that we’re making in this paper that the investments you make at one point, you’ll reap the dividends later on. Both as individuals in the public health space and institutions and systems, we’re at a moment in time when we’re required to be very agile and pivot.