Jim Day
HOSPITALS around the country are having trouble meeting the demand for abortions, largely due to reluctance on the part of staff to take part in the procedure.
No one knows the exact number of medical professionals who have declined outright to help with abortions, but Helen Rees, respected director of the Reproductive Health Research Unit at Baragwanath Hospital, has estimated that as many as 50% of health workers nationwide are resisting getting involved.
Due to its staff constraints, Johannesburg General Hospital is able to perform only four abortions a day, and is booked until at least February 19.
The hospital has received anywhere from15 to 44 requests a day, including many from women who were ineligible because their pregnancies were too advanced. Many patients have been referred from other hospitals which are not performing the procedure.
“We don’t know if we’ll ever catch up,” said hospital spokesman Trudy Schutte.
At Coronation Hospital, in Coronationville on the West Rand, only about 20% of operating theatre assistants said they would be willing to assist in abortions, hospital superintendent Dr A Manning said. So far, the hospital has been able to meet the demand for abortions, but its staff has been stretched thin.
“They are unhappy it is being done at the hospital,” Manning said. “If they had a choice, I don’t think we’d be doing abortions at all.”
Rees and others said they had expected to have problems with staff, given the controversial nature of the procedure.
Rees said most hospital administrators and doctors would have liked to have had six months to prepare, not just the two they were given.
Hospitals were also stymied by more unexpected difficulties, such as not having the proper equipment on hand and a delay in the registration of misoprostil, a drug commonly used in abortions.
Misoprostil has been approved for use, but because of bureaucratic bungling it wasn’t properly registered. Gauteng officials hope the drug will be available for use within the next few days.
“It has been a nightmare week,” said Rees, though she added that she is confident things will smooth out soon.
Staff-training programmes have focused mainly on informing health workers about abortion and about the laws that regulate it.
The goal is not to convert people who oppose the procedure, but to educate them so they feel comfortable taking part, said Xhosi Xaba, deputy director of the Women’s Health Project, which has been running training sessions in three provinces.
“There is a middle ground of people who just need certain information,” she explained. “Then they need to understand that abortion is an issue of women’s control of their bodies.”