Teenage girls, many of them in school uniforms, are flocking to Port Elizabeth’s Dora Nginza Hospital to have abortions, the Herald Online reported on Wednesday.
It said more than 160 abortions were performed at the Dora Nginza Hospital last month.
A health worker, who did not want to be named, said on Tuesday there was an alarming increase in girls under the age of 18 going to the hospital for abortions.
Her claims were substantiated by the regional branch of Child Welfare South Africa, which said the situation seemed to be out of control.
The health worker said the fact that girls did not need their parents’ permission to have an abortion, and that nurses were bound by confidentiality, were all part of the problem.
”Young girls — some in their school uniforms — come to the hospital in droves during school hours,” she said.
”Many girls use abortion as a method of contraception, as you see many of these young faces coming for an abortion for a second time.”
A total of 55 246 legal abortions were performed nationally last year, according to the Health Department. Of these, about 1 600 were in the Eastern Cape.
The health worker said: ”The demand for abortions at Dora Nginza [Hospital] is so great that people are now given dates. If you come in tomorrow, the earliest date you’ll get could be June or July”. — Sapa