Chinese youth project triples the projected number of hospital partners

An Innovation Fund-supported project in China set out to partner with two hospitals to train their doctors in providing young people with Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs). But project leader MSI China, supported by a team of experts, surpassed the original plan and signed agreements with six pilot hospitals instead. The 11-member youth contraception expert team includes four senior directors of the Family Planning Committee of the Chinese Medical Association (CMA); technical advisor, Professor Wu Shangchun, has drafted a seminal document, Guidelines for Youth Access to a Full Range of Contraceptives, which the pilot hospitals will use as their principal reference to train service providers and which will go on to be developed into a set of national guidelines to be implemented in hospitals nationwide.

Twenty-five representatives from the pilot hospitals across China have begun their training in Beijing. The aim is to train 50 doctors in all. A Pilot Hospital Manual has been produced, which comprehensively details contraceptive service methods, to better guide hospitals during the upcoming pilot phase. In its next stage, this ambitious project will forge a strategy on how to roll out “Guidelines for Youth Access” nationally to inform and sensitise service providers countrywide on making contraceptives available to young people.

“I have headed MSI China for the last 16 years,” said Lily Liu, Country Director at Marie Stopes China. “I am not often surprised, but I was taken aback at the support and enthusiasm we encountered by the national experts in these six pilot hospitals. I like to believe that health providers in China are growing more sensitive to the reproductive health needs of young people.”

For more information on this project, please contact Bryony Thorpe at bryony@youandme.net.cn.