Uncertified abortions – an aberration that must be “crushed” – Health Minister

Feb 14, 2015 News

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Unlawful termination of pregnancies commonly referred to as abortions, should have long been a thing of the past in Guyana. At least this was the deduction of Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, who firmly insisted, “There is no need for any Guyanese woman to subject herself to the ministrations or malpractices of any ‘quack’.”
The Minister was at the time responding to a question about the measures in place by his Ministry. The query is whether they are effective enough to help guard against unauthorized termination of pregnancies.
The termination of pregnancy is something that is catered for in the Constitution and only a certified doctor is authorized to undertake such a procedure. “We have laws for that. The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and many other hospitals have the capacity to offer this,” said the Health Minister.
“There were training sessions and the legislation even determines what an abortion is and how it can be done; the consultation with the family and the support of relatives which needs to be done.”
Measures were put in place to offer legitimate termination of pregnancy services, the Minister said, in light of the fact that such procedures were being offered by many persons, some of whom weren’t necessarily medical professionals.
“In the past it didn’t have to be a doctor; the quacks included all manner of people; even old ladies were trying to do it, but anybody doing abortions even if it is a doctor, that person must be specially certified for this activity now,” asserted the Minister.
And the Health Minister is adamant that there could be no plausible excuse for any practitioner, unless for simple greed, to be at the centre of a botched abortion, since such a procedure is usually not an emergency.
“But even if the need for an abortion was seen as an emergency, the Minister noted that there are many centres of excellence that can be easily accessed. These try to maintain international standards and maintain the law.
“So we will frown on and be very caustic and aggressive in our support for any measures taken against anybody, be it a doctor, nurse, midwife or any Guyanese citizen who practices on our women,” threatened the Minister.
He nevertheless emphasized the fact that botched abortions are still occurring today, suggests the need for the Ministry to further embrace an enlightening approach with sex education being paramount together with the easy, informed access to reproductive health products.
Already such efforts have started, the Minister said, evident by the availability of reproductive products in the health centres across the country and the delivery of sex education in the school system.
“I think we would have conquered that long ago, so any such issue that is now arising is an aberration that needs to be crushed fully because long ago we had stopped this foolishness,” asserted the Health Minister.
He said that through continued education, including the dissemination of fliers and other forms of information, the population, particularly women and young people, will continue to be enlightened and therefore empowered to make wise decisions.
“The more educated a woman is the stronger her family is; the healthier that family will be and the less vulnerable they will be to unplanned pregnancies,” said the Minister. He noted that even if there is an unplanned pregnancy, education will allow persons to deal with such “in the correct, legal and healthy fashion.”
Although a Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act was brought into being since 1995, under the tenure of then Minister of Health, Gail Teixeira, the related issue has been one fraught with controversy, with some persons advocating for the provision of the service while others have been opposing it.
Despite this state of affairs, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Shamdeo Persaud said, “Minister Ramsaran has been bold enough to take on that challenge and we are happy to say that we have started…”
“We didn’t make an announcement, deliberately, because we didn’t want to stigmatise any institution or health professionals, because in some countries there are designated abortion clinics. We don’t want to go there,” said Dr. Persaud.
Although recently implemented, the termination of pregnancy service has been running smoothly at several public health facilities, according to the CMO.  He pointed out that this has seen the Ministry being able to “institute the full law, which means that women seeking a termination of pregnancy, not related to medical conditions, incest or rape, can by choice come to one of the clinics to access the service.”
Ahead of being afforded the service, Dr. Persaud explained that women are provided with pre-termination counselling. This, he noted, is in keeping with the Act which requires that a 48-hour period be given to patients to consider whether they still desire to proceed with the procedure or not.
And according to Dr. Persaud too, “if they wish or wish not to discuss with their partner, that’s fine; the law does not mandate them to do that. It is fully the woman’s right; she has the time to consider based on the counselling session, whether she would like to go ahead and there are also options that will be given to her.”
“The law says that options should be described to the pregnant woman, one of which would be to go through with the pregnancy and maybe adoption options and so on, and then of course detailing the termination process itself which can have consequences,” outlined Dr. Persaud.
He noted however, that there may be instances when some women may not opt to voluntarily have an abortion, but are instead forced to do so for various reasons which could range from migration to marital issues.
As such, the importance of counselling cannot be understated as part of the process, said Dr. Persaud, as he stressed, “Counselling gives enough room for people to consider all the factors and make informed decisions in the end.”
Once a woman has carefully considered the possible options, she can then return to an approved health centre that is certified by the Chief Medical Officer to have the procedure done. On completion of the procedure, patients are then subjected to post-termination counselling which, according to Dr. Persaud, “includes the provision of contraceptives so that they do not use termination as a form of contraceptive…this is to ensure that the next time around they would use an approved non-termination technique.”
The CMO said that the Health Ministry has been working to ensure that all those tasked with conducting the procedure are properly trained and licensed and that “we are using recommended safe measures for termination.”

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