Hospital in regional NSW ordered to restore access to abortion services

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A public hospital at Orange in regional New South Wales is restoring abortion services after an ABC investigation revealed the executive had directed staff to no longer provide terminations on patients for non-medical reasons.

Transcript

00:00What we discovered as part of this investigation was that some months ago, earlier this year,

00:07the hospital executive ordered the obstetrics and gynaecology team, ordered verbally, that

00:14they stop providing terminations for non-medical reasons and where patients presented without

00:20early pregnancy complications or where there wasn't a fetal anomaly or a malformation in

00:26the pregnancy.

00:27Now, we have spoken to multiple sources within and outside the hospital who say they had

00:34been providing both surgical and medical terminations in Orange Hospital, but that verbal directive

00:42was issued earlier this year.

00:44Then last week, we reported a story about women having great troubles getting access

00:50to abortions across regional New South Wales.

00:53We referenced Orange in that story, and the story we put out this morning contained a

00:59leaked document which was emailed out to many hospital staff on Monday, and that was the

01:06first time that there'd been a widely distributed written directive which had become formal

01:15policy as of Monday, and it showed itself in a flowchart, and that flowchart demonstrated

01:22that anyone who was presenting to the hospital wanting an abortion for non-medical reasons

01:28or where they didn't have pregnancy complications, any doctor, midwife or nurse treating them

01:33would have to refer them onto a GP or send them to Family Planning New South Wales.

01:38Now, the nearest Family Planning New South Wales clinic is in Dubbo, almost two hours

01:43away.

01:44It doesn't open on weekends.

01:45It doesn't offer surgical terminations.

01:47So what that document that we obtained showed was that the hospital had effectively put

01:52an explicit ban in writing on terminations for non-medical reasons.

01:58So we published our story this morning, and this afternoon, the New South Wales Health

02:04Minister, Ryan Park, posted to social media that all abortion services previously offered

02:12at Orange Hospital would be restored.

02:15So effectively saying that this so-called ban had been lifted.

02:21The Western New South Wales Health District, or the LHD as they're known, also sent us

02:28a statement around the same time that that note from Ryan Park came out saying the same

02:36sort of thing.

02:37And they also noted that they are now conducting a review of access to abortion care across

02:45the local health district's public facilities.

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