More than 30,000 family planning service stations in Chinese townships and counties will gradually use unified symbols and in-house setups in the next five years as a move to improve reproductive services for the public, a National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) official said in Beijing Thursday.
   
Zhang Shikun, deputy director of NPFPC's science and technology department, said that family planning stations, responsible for offering 70 percent of reproductive health services in China, will all use the green symbol of "FP" (family planning) on top of "C"-type olive leaves.
   
In addition, they will unify in-house setup, station facade, personnel costume and improve medical equipment to set up modern disinfection, examination and surgery rooms.
   
China started to build up a family planning service network in the early 1980s, mainly for birth control purposes. At present, 150,000 people work in 2,400 county stations and 34,000 township stations that cover 80 percent of the country to spread reproductive health knowledge, distribute contraceptives and offer birth control services.
   
According to Zhang, as non-profit social organizations, family planning service stations are funded by the central and local governments. The central budget allocated 2 billion yuan (US$25 million) to them last year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2005)