Turning policy into action
Lusaka - MSI Zambia helps develop new guidelines that will lower maternal deaths and unsafe abortion numbers.
Sometimes a liberal abortion law is not enough to reduce unsafe abortions, which is what MSI Zambia found. Most people in Zambia, including many health practitioners, didn’t know about or understand the abortion law and were reluctant to use safe abortion services, contributing to the country’s high maternal mortality rate. So MSI Zambia joined forces with the Ministry of Health and others to develop new guidelines to make the law, and therefore services, more accessible.
Over the past year or so, the MSI Zambia team made significant contributions to the development and drafting of The Standards and Guidelines for Reducing Unsafe Abortion Morbidity and Mortality in Zambia. These new guidelines have recently been published and will help to provide a means through which the policy - the Zambia Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1972 - can be translated into action.
The guidelines tackle the challenges of unsafe abortion through the implementation of a comprehensive abortion healthcare package. Abortion can now be performed in the interests of a women’s physical or mental health; nurse practitioners can now provide medical abortion and first trimester abortion; and women no longer have to have an overnight stay in hospital after an abortion.
Zambia has long been faced with the challenge of high maternal morbidity and mortality rates. In urban and rural areas alike, women were dying needlessly as a result of pregnancy-related complications. Zambia’s mortality ratio currently stands at 591 per 100000 live births. The contribution MSI Zambia made to the guidelines is a major result. Their proactive approach enabled them to be a part of the vehicle of change which will lead more women to use safe abortion services and access family planning; reducing the number of unsafe abortions and maternal deaths in the country.
The next objective is to ensure that the Standards and Guidelines are widely disseminated to all stakeholders and implemented, and MSI Zambia is doing its bit to ensure they are. In tandem with the objective of saving the lives of women and offering services to prevent unplanned pregnancy, MSI Zambia has continued to expand its programme by signing network agreements with strategic private partners and has offered the Marie Stopes Medical Process training for each respective partner. The MSI team is also working with local district management teams and local NGOs to further increase access to family planning safe abortion services in Zambia.