Hospital Struggles with Abortion Demand
By STEVE DOW, health editor The AGE, Thursday, 1 May, 1997
The Royal Women’s Hospital is struggling to meet demand for abortions, with two-thirds of women seeking pregnancy terminations at the hospital forced to go elsewhere, an audit has found.
Between January and March last year, more than 1000 women sought abortions at the hospital. The study found that many had to wait longer than a week to see a gynecologist.
The audit, to be presented today to a Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists conference in Brisbane, also found that follow-up appointments were not consistently organized.
The audit was conducted by the pregnancy advisory service at the hospital after the National Health and Medical Research Council circulated a controversial report last November. The report found there had been little attention to the provision and standards of abortion services in Australia.
Dr Kirsten Black found that the service performed well against the audit criteria, except in the areas of appointments with gynecologists, screening for genital tract infections, and follow-ups.
The two-thirds of women who could not have abortions at the hospital used private services (some of which bill under Medicare).
An obstetrician and gynecologist at the hospital, Dr Sonia Grover, said the Royal Women’s had not been able to keep up with demand, but was doing exceedingly well compared with other public hospitals, which were avoiding the responsibility of providing a full range of women’s health services. She said the Royal Women’s had recently increased capacity and was continuing to review abortion services.
Greater access to abortions was blocked in November when the research council refused to endorse its own committee’s report calling for improved availability of surgical abortions.
Instead, it voted to receive and make public the 62-page report. The council’s leaders decided not to put a motion of endorsement to the vote because it was bitterly divided over abortion.
Without endorsement, the 30 recommendations in the report were severely weakened.
The recommendations included improved access to abortion for rural women and those without private health insurance, and a call for the Law Reform Commission to clarify the legality of abortion under state and territory laws.