MATERNAL CHILD HEALTH AND FAMILY-PLANNING - USER PERSPECTIVES AND SERVICE CONSTRAINTS IN RURAL BANGLADESH

Presents a microanalysis of interactions between female fieldworkers and women in rural Bangladesh, and a discussion of the broader organizational constraints that hamper service delivery. In the eyes of rural women, contraceptive use and health care are intricately intertwined, and this association often raises a range of questions that the worker cannot address competently. A number of specific operational barriers are identified which reflect a general institutional weakness in the Ministry of Health bureaucracy that prevents it from organizing itself to deliver user-oriented health and family planning services while maintaining adequate and appropriate standards of care. -from Authors