Family planning clinics in Kyenjojo district have been closed due to insufficient funding.
In 2008, the health department set up the clinics in the rural areas to help families get access to family planning services and information.
This was after the Family Planning Association of Uganda, now Reproductive Health Uganda carried out a survey and found out that people in the district were ignorant about family planning issues.
The clinics, which were set up in the entire 17 sub counties in the district, were located at the sub county headquarters and the operations were carried out in tents.
However last week, the health department started closing all the clinics after the district allocated only 30 million shillings to family planning activities in the 2011/2012 financial year, unlike in the past when 300 million shillings was allocated for these activities.
The health department has now set up one family planning clinic at the health centre 1V in Kyenjojo town.
Beatrice Kasande, a resident of Nyakwanzi Sub County says that she often attended the clinics in order to get information on birth control methods and child spacing unlike in the past when she was ignorant.
Kasande says few people will now afford to travel long distances to Kyenjojo Health Centre Four.
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Samuel Nahanga, the in-charge Reproductive Health Uganda clinic Rwenzori region says that it was wrong for the district to close the units at a time when there is a campaign to promote family planning methods in the Western region.
Nahanga says that since the clinics opened, the response of families towards use of family planning methods had increased. He cities the recent research that Reproductive Health Uganda carried out in Kyenjojo, which shows that 75% of families in rural areas are knowledgeable about family planning, unlike four years ago when it was 35%.
But Steven Asiimwe, the District Health Officer Kyenjojo says that insufficient funds were allocated to family planning because there are plans to renovate some health centres that are in a poor state and also the department vehicles that broke down.
Asiimwe says that apart from transferring the clinics to Kyenjojo Health Centre, they will continue sensitizing people on issues of family planning through the radio talk shows.
