London - A new study by international reproductive health organisation Ipas into abortion care in Nepal has shown that not only are complications rare in general, but services offered by Marie Stopes International (MSI) are the safest of all.
Researchers interviewed more than 7,000 women who received abortion care at public, private and NGO clinics over a three-month period. The study found that:
- 77% of these women received care at Marie Stopes International’s Sunaulo Parivar Nepal (SPN) centres
- overall the complication rate among all women was low (2%)
- women receiving care at SPN centres were significantly less likely to have complications than women receiving abortion services from all other types of clinics: 1% at SPN compared to 5.6% at other facilities.
Abortion has been provided throughout Nepal since it was legalised in 2002, with more than 200,000 women seeking abortion services in the years since then. The Ipas study was undertaken to document the extent of complications arising from comprehensive abortion care in order to improve the quality of services.
The study was conducted as a cooperative project of the Family Health Division, Department of Health Services of the Ministry of Health and Population, the Population, Health and Development Group (a local research organisation), the Technical Committee for the Implementation of Comprehensive Abortion Care and Ipas. The findings were officially released in Nepal on 30th July.
MSI opened its first centre in Nepal in partnership with SPN in 1994. Today, MSI Nepal has grown into a leading family planning and reproductive health service provider with a service network across 45 of the country’s 75 districts. Among non-government providers, MSI Nepal has been instrumental in expanding the uptake of modern family planning methods and provided 92,800 safe abortions from 2004 to 2007. The organisation has not only saved the lives of many women but has also made an important contribution to the decline in maternal mortality in Nepal.
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