Abortions in Waikato going to contractor

Waikato has stopped providing its own abortion service. Photo / Thinkstock

Waikato Hospital has stopped providing its own abortion service and a contractor has been hired, partly because of objections by some staff.

The Waikato District Health Board has contracted a long-established abortion clinic, the Auckland Medical Aid Centre, to provide surgical abortions at three Waikato hospitals.

But Waikato girls and women who instead want the medical abortion pill face travelling to Auckland for this service, also provided by the medical aid centre, because the DHB says it doesn't have enough space for it at Waikato Hospital.

The DHB confirmed yesterday that it had a three-year contract with the medical aid centre for surgical abortions at Waikato, Thames and Tokoroa Hospitals. The contract began this year.

Chief operating officer Jan Adams in a June letter told Ken Orr, of Christchurch anti-abortion group Right to Life, that the medical aid centre would start performing medical abortions at Waikato Hospital by this month, "when building works are complete".

But the DHB's spokeswoman, Mary Anne Gill, said yesterday that although it still intended medical abortions to be provided at Waikato Hospital, it now had no timeframe for when that would happen.

That service was at present provided for the Waikato by the medical aid centre in Auckland, on contract to the Ministry of Health.

Ms Gill said Family Planning had made a bid to the DHB for an abortion contract, but it was rejected partly because the tender was for medical abortions only and they would not have been done at the hospital.

"We believe it is better to have a clear clinical pathway within our own facilities."

Mr Orr attributed the contracting out of surgical abortions to "the fact that the staff at Waikato Hospital just don't want to be involved in doing abortions".

Ms Gill said a "small number" of staff had exercised the right to opt out.

Alison McCulloch, of the pro-abortion group, Abortion Law Reform Association, said she was disappointed Waikato women could not access medical abortion at their local hospital.

"Making early medical abortion more accessible is a crucial way of ensuring that abortions are performed earlier rather than later."