The objective of this research is toidentify the main social and cultural constraints inaccessing reproductive, maternal, newborn and child healthServices (RMNCHS) in Guinea-Bissau, to effectively improvetheir access and use by women and children. Additionally,the research also explores aspects related to female genitalcutting (FGC or FGM) and girls’ access to information onreproductive health. The demand barriers to improve accessand coverage of quality of MCH services were previouslylisted as: (i) poor technical quality, (ii) poorresponsiveness; (iii) high controversial costs; (iv)access/distance to health facilities; (v) use of traditionalpractices. These intertwine with supply side barriers suchas: (i) weakness of training capacity; (ii) shortage ofhealth professionals; (iii) inadequate referral system; and(iv) weak supply chain. Six major themes were researched andoutlined in this paper: (i) use of health facilities(ante-natal care and delivery at home/health center (HC),women´s secrets and men’s, elderly women and the kingdom ofthe health center); (ii) access to health facilities(distance, transportation); (iii) the health center (staffcompetence, payments/gratuities, possible improvements);(iv) socio-cultural issues (gender, religious); (v)reproductive health and FGM (family planning); (vi) healthstaff: community health agent (CHA) (being a CHA, access tothe health center, relationship with the HC and with thecommunity, socio-cultural issues, reproductive health andFGM); and (vii) health staff: nurses (being a nurse, accessto the health center, relationship with the community,socio-cultural issues, reproductive health and FGM).
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