Voluntary abortions have been reduced by “at least 20 or 25%” with the pandemic, says Rodolfo Moreno, head of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at Can Misses Hospital, before participating in the first conference organised by the Balearic Society of Contraception. The group was formed last Friday at the Hospital Son Llàtzer, after the round tables and presentations, which also involved Dr. Cristina Molina, head of the Women’s Health Care Unit of the es Viver health center.
Last year, the public healthcare system performed a total of 367 voluntary pregnancy terminations on Ibiza and Formentera, fewer than usual, something Moreno attributes to the lower number of people on the Pitiusas islands. “With the return to normality we will probably see the figures return to the levels we had before,” reflects the doctor, who highlights the high percentage of voluntary abortions that are performed in the public health pitiusa: 90% of the total, a figure that overall in the Comunitat is 59%.
The gynaecologist details that the Balearic Islands is, along with Madrid and Catalonia, of the communities with the highest rate of abortions: 14 per thousand women aged between 15 and 44 years when this figure, in Spain, “ranges between eleven and twelve”. In Ibiza, he continues, it is even higher. “We exceed fifteen,” says Moreno, who attributes this high figure “to a young population, growing, with a lot of turnover, with many seasonal workers, with unstable contracts, with job insecurity and problems of access to housing”.
Idiosyncrasies of Ibiza
“All this makes it impossible to go ahead with a pregnancy, in towns in central Spain they do not have such a high rate because they do not have the idiosyncrasies of the island of Ibiza”, continued the doctor shortly before participating in the first round table of the conference, ‘Interrupción voluntaria del embarazo en Balears’ (Voluntary pregnancy termination on the Balearic Islands), together with Francisco Javier Agüera Ortiz (Hospital Son Llàtzer), Manuel Oliver Díaz (Hospital Mateu Orfila) and Elena Jiménez Belío (Hospital Son Espases).
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