NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 22 – Acting Director-General for Health Dr. Patrick Amoth says adequate measures on Post-Abortion Care (PAC) guidelines as well as capacity building in all counties, to be able to bring health care workers to speed on the quality of abortion care.
Abortion in Kenya is illegal but is permitted under specified circumstances, including danger to the life and health of the expectant mother and rape.
Amoth’s sentiments come after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued new abortion guidelines that include recommendations on many simple primary care level interventions that improve the quality of abortion care provided to women and girls.
“As a Ministry, we have drawn all PAC guidelines and ensured that health care workers are Knowledgeable about quality of abortion care,” Amoth said.
The WHO, while releasing the new guidelines, said more than 25 million unsafe abortions occur each year globally.
In an interview with Capital Health, Martin Onyango, Head of Legal Strategies for Africa at the Centre for Reproductive Rights, a Nairobi-based abortion lobby, said the guidelines will enable women and girls of reproductive health to access the much-needed safe and legal abortion care and end the preventable maternal and deaths and injuries caused by unsafe abortion.
“Nearly every death and injury that results from unsafe abortion is entirely preventable. That’s why we recommend women and girls can access abortion and family planning services when they need them,” Martin explained.
The WHO released more than 50 recommendations spanning clinical practice, health service delivery, and legal and policy interventions to support quality abortion care.
“What the WHO guidelines have done is to consolidate the recommendations to countries on how to improve access to health care in particular access to abortion looking at both technical and environment for provision of abortion care across the globe,” said Onyango.
For the first time, the guidelines also include recommendations for use where appropriate of telemedicine, which helped support access to abortion and family planning services during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is vital that an abortion is safe in medical terms”, said Dr. Bela Ganatra, Head of WHO’s Prevention of Unsafe Abortion Unit.
Worldwide, only around half of all abortions take place safely, causing around 39,000 deaths every year and resulting in millions more women hospitalized with complications.
Most of these deaths are concentrated in lower-income countries, said WHO, with over 60 percent in Africa and 30 percent in Asia – impacting the most vulnerable.
When abortion is carried out using a method recommended by the WHO, appropriate to the duration of the pregnancy and assisted by someone with the necessary information or skills, it is a simple and extremely safe procedure, the organization said.
In countries where abortion is most restricted, only 1 in 4 abortions are safe, compared to a positive safety record for nearly 9 in 10 in countries where the procedure is broadly legal.
“The evidence is clear – if you want to prevent unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions, you need to provide women and girls with a comprehensive package of sexuality education, accurate family planning information and services, and access to quality abortion care,” Dr. Ganatra added.
The guidelines recommend removing medically unnecessary policy barriers to safe abortion, such as criminalization, mandatory waiting times, the requirement that approval must be given by other people (e.g., partners or family members) or institutions, and limits on when during pregnancy an abortion can take place.
The UN health agency’s acting director for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research, Craig Lissner, noted that “being able to obtain a safe abortion is a crucial part of healthcare”.
“Nearly every death and injury that results from unsafe abortion is entirely preventable,” he insisted. That’s why we recommend women and girls can access abortion and family planning, when they need them.”
