The global surge of COVID-19 cases risks deprioritizing women’s healthcare services, particularly abortion care. The attached info sheet by DKT WomanCare describes solutions to maintaining abortion care, like transitioning care from operating theatres to outpatient/consulting rooms.

Outpatient care provides the following benefits:

1. Easier to schedule: outpatient procedures are less constrained by specialized space and face less disruption from emergency services.
2. Less time: Simpler and more predictable “in and out” with outpatient services than being admitted to an operating theater. This is a general benefit but particularly salient for reducing risk of contracting COVID-19.
3. Less costly: The absence of general anesthesia, an anesthesiologist, expensive operating theater staff, and the recovery bed means fewer expenses for the clinic and lower fees for the woman.
4. Greater flexibility: Outpatient services are more flexible than operating theater protocols; this elevates the woman’s experience and gives the provider more latitude to treat the patient in front of her/him.
5. Task shifting: Qualified clinicians, midwives and nurses can provide abortion care in outpatient settings, freeing up specialists for acute cases that require advanced skills or knowledge.

For women who cannot or prefer not to have their abortion with pills, outpatient abortion care should be available, and the Ipas MVA provides a simple way to make this happen. 

The COVID-19 pandemic should not prevent women from having access to safe abortion care and we invite everyone to do its best for guaranteeing women to beneficiate from it if needed, even in such hard times.