The current situation regarding the reform of the abortion law advocated by the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, arguing that in many areas of the country eight out of ten abortions are performed in private clinics and that there are communities where they are not even performed, does not reflect the current situation in the Balearic Islands where, according to the latest Public Health report on voluntary terminations of pregnancy (hereinafter IVEs), corresponding to the year 2019, 58.8% of abortions performed in that year were done in the public health system .
The data in the aforementioned report show that out of a total of 3,310 abortions performed that year, 1,947 (58.8% of the total) were performed in public centres and the remaining 1,363 (41%) in private clinics. And these percentages have been consolidating since 2012, when the proportion of IVEs performed in the public system began to increase hand in hand with pharmacological abortions that doctors were less reluctant to perform.
Previously, without going any further back than 2011, only 193 abortions were performed in the public health system (5.6% of the total) compared to the 3,273 (94.4%) that were performed in private clinics, either paid for out of pocket by the affected women or referred by the Servei de Salut itself.
Doctor Octavi Córdoba, head of gynaecology at Son Espases, explains that currently in his department the service is guaranteed and no less than ten of his assistants perform chemical abortions.
A total of 367 in Ibiza and Formentera
The figures of the main data correspond to the year 2019 and were compiled in February of this year because they also include 47 women who had abortions in the archipelago without residing there.
The Conselleria de Salud offered more current data from 2020, but which only include abortions carried out in Servei de Salut facilities or referred by the latter to private clinics for the aforementioned reason, as they are non-problematic abortions (not due to foetal malformations or risk to the mother) which nevertheless require an operating theatre.
Thus, last year the IB-Salut paid for a total of 1,998 IVEs, of which 1,307 were performed in Mallorca (460 in the Ponent sector, 475 in Migjorn, 190 in the Tramuntana sector and 182 in the Llevant sector), 118 in Menorca and 367 in Ibiza and Formentera. The remaining 206 were referred to the four private clinics with which it has an agreement, three in Mallorca and one in Menorca.
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