Women forced to travel as only 10 out of 19 maternity units provide full abortion service
JUST half of the country’s 19 maternity units are providing a full abortion service, it emerged yesterday.
It means that some women are more likely to have to travel for the service, despite the new abortion law coming into effect in January.
The HSE said that “work is ongoing with hospital groups to roll out the service in additional maternity hospitals”.
However, a spokeswoman said it has not received any formal complaints about women travelling a long distance or failure to get a referral.
A full service would include the provision of medical abortion as well as terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, or in cases of risk to the life or health of the mother.
It is understood that factors which are slowing down the wider availability include issues of conscientious objection among staff and infrastructural problems.
Some of the smaller units said that it would be necessary to set up dedicated clinics which would have little demand.
The hospitals which are providing the full service include the National Maternity Hospital, Mullingar Hospital, the Rotunda and Coombe, Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda, University Hospital Galway, Mayo Hospital, University Hospital Limerick, Cork University Hospital and Waterford Hospital.
According to the HSE “in line with the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act a “primarily community-led service is being delivered by GPs”.
All maternity hospitals provide some form of support including managing complications arising from termination.
They are also available for appropriate care and supervision for women following the diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality and referral to a unit which would carry out a termination if they requested it.
They “provide care and supervision in cases where the
mother’s health or life is at risk”.
The women would also be sent on to another unit if they needed a termination.
Meanwhile, there are now 340 GPs signed up to provide medical abortions up to nine weeks of pregnancy.
This compares to around 236 in January and follows the delivery of training in medical abortion to more family doctors.
The HSE said that “no capacity issues have been raised and service demand remains within the predicted limits”.
The myoptions.ie information site run by the HSE as part of the service recorded 9,319 calls between January and the end of August.
They included 8,428 personal callers and 686 professional queries.
The majority were seeking information while 1,903 asked for “listening support” and 77 sought counselling.
Some 766 were referred to a nursing line.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Simon Harris has said free contraception for women will be available from 2021.
“We have made very significant progress regarding male contraception in terms of condoms,” he said.
“We have very significantly increased the amount of condoms that we are distributing,” he added.
“We are putting vending machines into a number of locations throughout the country, and our sexual health strategy very much aligns with this, not only in terms of reducing crisis pregnancy but in terms of reducing sexually transmitted infections which are at a worrying level in our country.”