News and Events
New Abortion Study in Nepal
At a meeting held on 27th March 2008 at the Hotel Himalaya, organised jointly by University of California San Francisco (USA), Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital Kathmandu, Maternity Hospital Kathmandu and the NGO CREHPA, initial findings were shared and reviewed from an extensive study carried out at the two hospitals to assess the effects of legalisation of abortion. Legal abortion services were initiated at Maternity Hospital in 2004, gradually expanding across the country during the next few years. This comprehensive study used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, reviewing medical charts from the two hospitals from April 2000 to December 2007 and carrying out in depth interviews with health care personnel. The findings, based on rigorous statistical analysis, showed that it is still too early to see a real reduction in the number of cases of serious post abortion complications presenting at hospitals, which might be expected as more women are able to opt for safe legal terminations, rather than high risk “back street” abortions. However, anecdotally, health workers do feel they are seeing fewer extreme cases of abortion complications, and there are indications that this trend will increase over the next few years. It was noted that overall increases in the number of women seeking abortion services and care for post abortion complications and changes in medical recording systems made it more difficult to accurately interpret results. However, the study provides a sound baseline from which to measure future changes and the work will be continued for another three years, to feed into programme planning, including evaluation of unmet need for safe abortion and treatment for post abortion complications and how capacity needs to be increased. It was also noted that Post abortion care will still need to be a major focus, despite legalisation of safe abortion services, as access to these services is still limited by cost, distance and information barriers, particularly for poor women. Until these barriers are overcome, some women will continue to seek risky abortion options.
07/04/2008
Ashima Shrestha
SSMP
