Rural hospitals in Assam lack safe abortion facilities

Over 73% abortions in Assam take place in government hospitals, highest among the six states but those in rural areas lack facilities for safe abortions.

This was revealed in a study on Unintended Pregnancy, Abortion and Postabortion Care in Assam — 2015 conducted jointly by Indian Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, Population Council, New Delhi and New York-based Guttmacher Institute.

The study covered abortion cases registered in 2015 in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Assam but the Northeastern state was found to have demonstrated better access to safe abortion services in public facilities than private facilities.

"It was found that 588 facilities in Assam provided abortion-related care in 2015, 61% of which were in public facilities. It was found that though a majority of women in Assam live in rural areas, merely 45% of the facilities offering abortion-related services were located in these areas," it said.

The study found that an estimated 580,100 abortions are performed in Assam every year. "As per the study, 55% of pregnancies in Assam were unintended out of which 41% resulted in abortion. Some of the barriers that were found to continue to persist in accessing facility-based abortions are a lack of trained staff, paucity of equipment and supplies, social or religious concerns and lack of registration/authorization to provide abortion," it said.

According to the Guttmacher study, Assam is the only state among the six states which registered 15% of all induced abortions in public facilities, while Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh fell behind at 2%, 3% and 4% respectively.

"While no woman wants to turn to an unsafe provider, there are many factors that lead women to seek an abortion outside the formal health sector. Increasing the provision of abortion services in the public sector is critical to meeting demand for abortion services for rural and lower-income women, it said.

The results from Assam prove that women do seek abortion care at public sector facilities when services are made available closer to their communities, said a statement quoting Nozer Sheriar, board member Guttmacher Institute, New York and former Secretary-General, Federation of Obstetrics & Gynaecological Societies of India.

Studies have shown that unsafe abortions are the third leading cause of maternal mortality in India. About eight women die from causes related to unsafe abortion in the country every day.