Uganda – Family Medical Point rescues Kigungu women from death caused by unsafe abortions

NELSON MANDELA | PML Daily Reporter
March 10, 2024

ENTEBBE – Namakula Josephine is a sex worker in Kigungu landing site, Entebbe. She says in 2023, a client deliberately broke a condom thereby impregnating her.

As a poor lady, she was advised by a friend to use herbal medicine to remove the unwanted baby because she couldn’t raise money for a safe abortion. Little did she know this could cost her life.

“I got a lot of complications, bled a lot, and even some foetus parts remained inside which started rotting,” she narrated.

Continued:  https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2024/03/celebrating-a-woman-family-medical-point-rescues-kigungu-women-from-death-caused-by-unsafe-abortions.html


Ugandan Women Risk Their Lives to Access Abortion

“Many girls are dying because we have chosen to ignore them.”

Friday, 8 March, 2024
Culton Scovia Nakamya

For Jovia (not her real name), 2023 was the worst year of her life. The 20-year-old business student was gang-raped at a drunken house party in the Kampala suburb of Kansanga and six weeks later realised that she was pregnant.

“I wondered what I am going to tell my parents. For God’s sake, I am just in my second semester of year one, and I didn’t know who did it,” she said.

Her options were limited, as abortion is illegal in Uganda except under rare circumstances. She confided in a female friend, who suggested they visit the Kampala suburb of Nakulabye, an area known as a hub of clinics that administer clandestine abortions, mostly to students.

Continued: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/ugandan-women-risk-their-lives-access-abortion


Local groups in Nigeria lead the way for inclusive abortion care

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2024
Ipas

In Nigeria, getting a safe abortion is already an uphill battle. But for women with disabilities, it can be nearly impossible. With support from the Ipas Collaborative Fund, the locally based SAIF Advocacy Foundation is paving the way to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, can access the quality abortion care they have a right to.

Abortion is only legal in Nigeria to save a woman’s life, and factors like stigma, cost, and lack of trained health providers make it difficult for women to access abortion even when their lives are at risk. Not surprisingly, many people resort to abortion with unsafe methods. Some die, and many suffer injuries. Ipas has long worked in Nigeria to ensure that high-quality treatment for complications of unsafe abortion (often called postabortion care) is widely available, but barriers remain.

Continued:   https://www.ipas.org/news/local-groups-in-nigeria-lead-the-way-for-inclusive-abortion-care/


Breaking barriers to safe abortion care in Mozambique

Médecins Sans Frontières
23 January 2024

In Beira, a city on Mozambique’s central coast, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is connecting hard-to-reach communities with safe abortion care and other sexual and reproductive health services.

Mozambique has one of Africa’s most liberal abortion laws, allowing abortion on request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and up to 24 weeks in limited circumstances, including fetal abnormality.

Though abortion has been legal since 2014, many people still face obstacles to accessing this care, including stigma, misinformation, and corruption, such as charging for services that should be free.

Continued: https://www.msf.org/breaking-barriers-safe-abortion-care-mozambique


Uganda – Local NGO comes to rescue of sex workers living on Lake Victoria landing sites

PML Daily
January 20, 2024

ENTEBBE – Reports of injuries and illnesses resulting from unsafe abortion complications among sex workers living on Lake Victoria landing sites are unacceptably high, placing a huge healthcare burden not only on individual patients and their families but also on the national healthcare system, which is already burdened with other morbidities.

On a sadder note, many of those who suffer these complications lose lives because they cannot afford or quickly access Post Abortion Care (PAC) depending on where they are offered.

Continued: https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2024/01/local-ngo-comes-to-rescue-of-sex-workers-living-on-lake-victoria-landing-sites.html


Uganda – Health service providers urged to extend post-abortion care without fear

NELSON MANDELA | PML Daily
December 3, 2023

KAMPALA – Health service providers in both public and private facilities have been urged to provide Post Abortion Care (PAC) without fear because it is fully provided for in the Ministry of Health standards and guidelines.

The call was made by Dr. Othman Kakaire – Executive Director of the Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Uganda (AOGU).

Continued: https://www.pmldaily.com/features/health/2023/12/health-service-providers-urged-to-extend-post-abortion-care-without-fear.html


Liberia: Abortion Care Is Health Care

Nov 30, 2023
By Siatta Scott Johnson

In Liberia, 16% of all pregnancies end in abortion, according to a recent study conducted in Liberia between October 2021 and March 2022 by the Ministry of Health and its partners, Clinton Health Access Initiative, the African Population and Health Research Center, and the Guttmacher Institute. It revealed that the national abortion incidence for the year 2021 was 38,779.

The revised Public Healthcare Law that will ensure the improvement in the lives of every Liberian, the protection of rights to choose and make informed decisions on their healthcare, and access to quality and gender response delivery, is being discussed in the Liberian Senate.

Continued: https://www.liberianobserver.com/liberia-abortion-care-health-care


Kenya – Meet the rural champions helping women combat unsafe abortion

By Nathan Ochunge
Oct. 23, 2023

Angela (real name withheld) got married at 19 after sitting her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination in Navakholo, Kakamega County.

A few months later, her husband secured a job in Nairobi, and for five years he never returned home. “I became lonely and got another man who impregnated me after six months of dating,” said Angela.

For the sake of her marriage, Angela sought the services of an elderly midwife to terminate the two-month pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/reproductive-health/article/2001483907/meet-the-rural-champions-helping-women-combat-unsafe-abortion


Uganda – Abortion-associated stigma affecting access to Post-Abortion Care – MOH

The Independent
September 30, 2023

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | While the government has put in place medical care services to support mothers who need post-abortion care in all healthcare centers, the Ministry of Health reveals that many of them still die due to complications without seeking help.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of Curative Services in the Health Ministry revealed that despite awareness efforts about the availability of such services that help women battling complications post-abortion, many still end up in the medical ward even when they turn up to hospitals because they provide wrong information to health workers.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.ug/abortion-associated-stigma-affecting-access-to-post-abortion-care-moh/


Malawi: Breaking the Barriers On Access to Safe Abortion to Reduce Maternal Mortality

28 SEPTEMBER 2023
Centre for Solutions Journalism (Blantyre)

28 September marks the annual International Safe Abortion Day. As Malawi joins the rest of the world in commemorating the day, it is important for the government to fulfill the commitment made in the National Postabortion Care Policy that 'no woman should suffer or die from complications of abortion in Malawi.'

Despite making the commitment, the reality is that many women and girls continue to die from unsafe abortion.

Recent data from the Ministry of Health shows an upsurge of unsafe abortions in several districts in Malawi, as reflected in the number of women and girls seeking post-abortion care in health facilities.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202309280103.html