Hospital trust says sorry over abortion pill withdrawal

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust has apologised for temporarily denying women one form of abortion. 

To cut waiting times the trust has withdrawn the option of having Early Medical Abortion (EMA), which terminates a pregnancy with a tablet. It means women can only abort a pregnancy by having an operation. However, the trust’s acting director of delivery, Valerie Howell, said it had made a mistake and would reverse the decision at the end of January.

Ms Howell said a sudden increase in abortions had doubled waiting times, leaving women waiting five weeks for their first appointment and seven weeks for the abortion. To reduce the waiting time to the normal two or three weeks, the trust decided to cut the longer tablet method during December and January. The trust told the BBC that it was trying to make sure it could cope with demand should it remain high.

Ms Howell said: ‘In hindsight we realise it was a wrong decision to make and we are really sorry that the women of Cornwall were not offered the choice that we would normally offer them. We will be going back to offering both methods from the end of January.’

Alongside other service providers, bpas was quoted in the Western Morning News, saying:

‘We are pleased to see the decision made to restore a choice of treatments to women needing an abortion. In our experience, many women choose the early medical abortion pill over a surgical abortion, where they are able to. The “pill” method is a less physically invasive and an extremely safe treatment, which avoids the need for a general anaesthetic. We feel that after making a very personal decision such as this, women should be offered as much treatment choice as is possible.’

Trust reverses abortion decision, BBC News, 10 January 2007