KARACHI:Minister of Health Sindh Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho on Thursday launched Sindh FP2020 Helpline called ‘Poocho’ and this helpline is a reliable source of 24/7 family planning, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and counseling services, especially for adolescents and youth.
The Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho along with the Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) Secretariat, Population Welfare Department in collaboration, with Greenstar Marketing (GSM) launched Sindh FP2020 Helpline called ‘Poocho’. The helpline initially was launched by Greenstar itself in 2005.
The POOCHO is comprised of highly skilled team members who are committed to provide support to the callers round the clock. The team is equipped with state of the art communication systems which include inbound and outbound calls facility, outgoing SMS facility, customer relationship management (CRM) system, and family planning algorithms, integrated voice recording (IVR) and automated caller feedback facility.
A strong training and quality assurance mechanism is also an integral part of the helpline that allows to maintain the standard and improve the quality of services. POOCHO helpline is currently providing family planning information and counseling services to more than 3,000 women and men / per month and has the capacity to serve 20,000/ callers per month.
The philosophy behind POOCHO is encouraging people to discuss their family planning needs, providing them a comfortable environment where they don’t feel shy to talk about their personal health issues. POOCHO is a platform, where people are confident that they will get comprehensive family planning information and customized counseling services. It is a resource on which people trust that their information is in safe hands and their discussion will be kept confidential.
An MoU is signed between Sindh FP 2020 and as a result of this MoU, POOCHO has become the official FP2020 Helpline of Sindh. The objective of this public-private partnership is to integrate POOCHO Helpline (0800 11171) with PWD, DoH, PPHI, LHW and MNCH under the umbrella of CIP as official FP2020 Helpline, to support in increasing CPR in Sindh.
This resource (POOCHO) is available 24/7 for provision of FP information and counseling services, task sharing with service providers through comprehensive FP/SRH counseling of clients for pre-service decision making, reduction in method discontinuation through dispelling myths and misconception and side effects management counseling and developing an effective referral and clients follow-up mechanism.