Marie Stopes Papua New Guinea

First established in 2006, Marie Stopes Papua New Guinea is now the largest provider of sexual and reproductive healthcare in the country.

We work closely with the Government of Papua New Guinea on their National Health Plan 2011-2020 to increase uptake of modern contraception, and train public and private health workers to better meet demand for family planning services.

A low contraceptive prevalence rate of just over 25% and high maternal mortality continue to pose challenges for the country. However, the team are strongly committed to reaching the poorest and hardest to reach, and have witnessed some great successes.

What we do in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea has a supportive policy environment for family planning, with several national policies strongly advocating for the rights of the women and young people to plan for their family size and freely choose a modern contraceptive method.

This has allowed our programme in Papua New Guinea to flourish, and from small beginnings we now reach half the country through extensive rural outreach, urban centres, social marketing and health worker training.

As well as delivering services our teams use a range of methods to build knowledge, understanding and acceptance of family planning. This includes discussions around gender roles that help shift the cultural attitudes of the male population in Papua New Guinea to a more respectful view of women’s rights and contraceptive choices.

A strong focus in all our work is making our services accessible to young people, who are the most at risk and the most under-served group in Papua New Guinea. 35% of the people we reached in the country in 2019 were under 25, and this was thanks to things like welcoming youth-friendly services, a specialised hotline, and engagement with the Catholic Church who hold strong significance within the community.

We want to make sure the services we offer in Papua New Guinea are available forever, even if we’re no longer the ones delivering them. That’s why we consider it our duty to help build the capacity of the country’s local health sector. In 2018 we trained 198 government health providers - they received their certificate of competency after twelve months of clinical supervision and mentoring by Marie Stopes Papua New Guinea team members.

Leading the world in vasectomy uptake

Vasectomy services are something of a success story for our Papua New Guinea programme – the country has the highest uptake in the Pacific Asia region.

Numbers have swelled from just 17 men in 2009 to over 1400 in 2015, covering both urban and rural communities. On at least one occasion we have witnessed over 200 men waiting for our outreach team to arrive so they could have the procedure. Many of these men had camped overnight to secure their place in line and all wanted a vasectomy.

The program’s success with vasectomy can be related to many factors, but at the heart of it all is our commitment to putting client needs at the centre:

• Vasectomies have been performed in both clinics and on outreach – our Papua New Guinea team is the only provider to travel directly to remote communities to bring them this service.
  
  
• Each centre and outreach team we operate in Papua New Guinea has trained at least one male nurse to perform non-scalpel vasectomies, as men in the country generally require a male to perform the procedure.
  
  
• The non-scalpel vasectomy technique we use is fast, simple and non-invasive, minimising the risk of infections and complications.
  
  
• The counselling we give men about vasectomy is tailored to their specific context, pressures and language, allowing them to see family planning as more than a women’s issue. By addressing family planning in the context of issues such as land, education costs and tribal fighting, they begin to see how it can be considered as a means of alleviating many of the hardships faced by their communities.
  
  
• Male peer educators enlisted from the local community share their experiences, which men can easily relate to. This approach ensures that we give potential clients information specific to their region and in a language they can understand.