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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Beth Kruse, CNM, Aurora Meidcal Center, 1207 N. 200 St., Suite 214, Seattle, WA 98133, 206-546-8891, bekruse@aol.com and Rivka Gordon, PA-C, MHS, Ipas, 200 Market St., Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
Worldwide, nearly 80,000 women die every year and millions more suffer serious complications and disabilities from unsafe abortion, which is wholly preventable. Even in countries where abortion-related maternal mortality is low, women still often lack access to abortion care and other reproductive health services that they want and need.
Increasing the accessibility of safe abortion care is a key strategy in reducing unacceptably high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, and in ensuring women’s ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive and reproductive rights. Since midlevel health care providers are more numerous and tend to be closer to women than physicians, they have a critical role to play in meeting women’s needs for postabortion care, and , in circumstances where it is legal, elective abortion.
Experience in Bangladesh, South Africa and several other countries demonstrates that authorizing, training and equipping midlevel providers to deliver menstrual regulation and/or abortion care can make an important difference in improving women’s access to needed services.
Creating an enabling environment to expand and strengthen midlevel providers’ scope of practice is especially important in situations where they are the principal or only health care providers in the communities where women live.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the learner will be able to
Keywords: Abortion, Barriers to Care
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.