We’ve been providing abortion services since 2020. When ICRH-M started receiving funding from SAAF we were able to train all the health professionals and community leaders on safe abortion. After training them, we trained the other maternal and child health nurses who directly provide the services.
Before we did this work we received patients with complications from unsafe abortions. They arrived here, sometimes with sepsis, and we couldn’t always save their lives. We lost women who died from unsafe abortions, some others lost their ability to get pregnant again.
But now we don’t see these situations. Because as soon as women know they don’t want to be pregnant, they know they can go to a health centre. Instead of going to the woman who inserts a stick inside them, they come here to the hospital to get safe abortion services. Women used to lose their wombs; others died. But not anymore.
In Mozambique, abortion is legal on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
And in certain situations, it is legally available until 24 weeks. But not everyone knows this, so it’s important we make women aware.
Before the training, we didn’t have very consistent information. Now we all know about the law decriminalising safe abortion. We know the gestational age at which a woman can access these services.
We find that the combination of Mifepristone and Misoprostol is the best. Whenever we’ve provided this treatment, we’ve never had any failures. And now here in Chitima we have 14 trained nurses who can provide this service.
Nurse Sara (R) with the father of a service user.
It’s difficult for women in very remote areas to get to clinics.
But they do everything they can to get to the health centre. It shows us that the information has reached them. When they need to receive services, they walk, they use bicycles or carriages and do everything they can to get here.
And during abortion counselling, we also talk about contraception.
We have examples of all the different contraceptive methods to show women. So, when we’re talking to her, we can share information about the advantages of each method, how long they last and so on. Then if she chooses something she’s happy with, we can offer it once she comes back after the abortion is complete.
An interview with Sara and Lourdes (pictured above), maternal and child health nurses and abortion providers trained by SAAF grantee partner ICRH-M.