Summary

Marie Stopes Society (MSS) is a social enterprise that provides comprehensive reproductive health services for people throughout Pakistan. Our aim, ultimately, is to increase access to reproductive health information and services that empower women, men, young people and families to lead healthier lives.

Program goals

 

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, with approximately 180 million inhabitants. It is also one of the world’s poorest countries, placed at 145 in the UN Human Development Index.

The cycle of poverty is exacerbated by a high maternal mortality rate, with 276 women out of every 100,000 live births dying in childbirth. This is more than double of what it should be if Pakistan is to achieve its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) relating to maternal mortality by 2015.

Women in Pakistan do not have access to quality family planning services, and for those who do, most do not have access to the full range of family planning methods and only a third of users have informed choice.

As a result, one in every three pregnancies is unintended, postpartum hemorrhage and other pregnancy related complications and the consequences of unsafe abortion become the major causes of maternal deaths or morbidity.

MSS, as a social enterprise provides comprehensive family planning and reproductive health information, counseling and services to people in Pakistan premised in its vision and mission:

Vision: Improved reproductive health of people in Pakistan.

Mission: To be the leading, effective and enduring contributor towards improved reproductive health of the people in Pakistan.

Key program components

A global partner of Marie Stopes International – one of the largest voluntary family planning providers worldwide – MSS provides a full range of reproductive health services, including information, counseling, family planning services, maternal and child healthcare and facilitating couples in the healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies.

Registered under the Societies Act of Pakistan in 1990, MSS opened its first clinic in Karachi in 1992. Today, we have a network of 82 services delivery centres and one mother and child health centre providing services in 73 districts of Pakistan and two subdivisions of FATA.

Established as a unique social business organization, applying modern marketing and management techniques to the achievement of social ends and contributing towards national poverty reduction, MSS services are accessible to approximately 70 million people in the country.

MSS is a client-focused social enterprise committed to delivering efficient and affordable family planning services with a rights-based approach that satisfy and delight its clients. Since its establishment MSS has worked on several projects and has used evidence to develop, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and quality of each of its health projects. Services including;

 

1. MSS adopts a holistic approach to safe motherhood. Many of its new centers offer maternity services in addition to family planning. MSS is working very closely with the government to strengthen public services and emergency care as an essential tier in the system to provide complete Mother and Child Health (MCH) services.

 

2. MSS provides family planning and reproductive health services through our Behtar Zindagi Centers, our Suraj Social Franchise network, through Outreach teams that service rural populations and through a cadre of Reproductive Health Private Providers (RHPPs) that operate in remote and far flung areas.

 

3. MSS also provides 24 hour Emergency Obstetric Care Services that include: Community education on safe motherhood, Care for obstetric complications, including emergencies, Antenatal care and counseling, including the promotion of maternal nutrition, Skilled assistance during childbirth, Postpartum care, Family planning counseling, information and services

 

4. MSS provides a wide range of services and products for family planning, along with advice from trained and skilled staff to ensure the reproductive health for both men and women of Pakistan, which includes Pills, Condoms, Injectable, Intra Uterine Devices, Tubal Ligation, Vasectomy, Emergency Contraception and;

 

5. Toll Free Call center provides information, counselling and referrals for Reproductive Health and Family Planning services. It also provides” Side effect management” and handles emergencies especially for clients serviced by Choice camps and Mobile Service units. The call center has also become an important mechanism for client feedback by following through an extensive standard operating procedure with the involvement of quality assurance and audit teams.   Online services also include a website (srhmatters.org) that caters to queries on sexual and reproductive health issues in an anonymous, confidential, online format.