The Ministry of Health promised to think about a ban on abortions in private clinics
[ad_1]
The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation is ready to discuss the ban on private clinics for abortions. The department claims that such institutions do not comply with the rule established by law – from 48 hours to seven days of silence before the procedure. A number of deputies and social activists have other complaints about commercial clinics: they hide the real number of abortions from the state. To implement the principle of “abortion only in a public hospital,” legislators need to either limit the patient’s rights or introduce new licensing legislation, lawyer Irina Gritsenko believes.
At the end of June, at a meeting of the State Council Commission on Social Policy, State Duma Vice Speaker Anna Kuznetsova (United Russia) proposed limiting the issuance of abortion licenses to private clinics to stimulate the birth rate in the country. Ms. Kuznetsova turned to the practice of Mordovia, where, according to her, private clinics will stop providing abortion services. She explained that this decision was made by Governor Artem Zdunov together with the leadership of commercial medical organizations in the region on a voluntary basis.
At a meeting of the State Duma on Tuesday, Tatiana Butskaya, Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children (United Russia), asked Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko how the department treats the proposal to leave the possibility of providing abortion services only in state medical institutions. Mr. Murashko assured that he was ready to discuss this initiative. According to him, she “deserves attention”, as the supervisory authorities in the course of inspections of private clinics revealed that they could not withstand a week of silence. According to the amendments to the law on the protection of the health of citizens in 2012, every woman who decides to terminate a pregnancy is given “days of silence” – depending on the period from 48 hours to seven days.
The deputies and a number of public activists have another claim against private clinics – unscrupulous provision of statistics.
According to the Ministry of Health, in 2022, 395,201 abortions were performed in Russia, which is 4% less than in 2021. In general, since the early nineties, the number of abortions in the country has been steadily declining – by an average of 6% per year, and now the figure is more than five times less than in 1990. Official statistics include data from both public and private clinics. However, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Alexei Kurinny (KPRF) is sure that private traders hide complete information.
The president of the Women for Life Foundation, Natalia Moskvitina, claims that private clinics provide (because they are obliged to) minimal statistics, but in fact the number of abortions performed is “many times more”: “We do not know their exact number. We can indirectly judge by the number of abortion drugs sold to clinics and individuals, although this is illegal: 500,000 a year. Thus, to the official 400,000, another half a million abortions should be added every year.” According to Ms. Moskvitina, the refusal of private clinics to provide abortion services would be “a good help to the demographic dynamics.”
Obstetrician-gynecologist, public health and health specialist, WHO expert Lyubov Erofeeva, on the contrary, believes that the statistics of private clinics are more reliable than the data of state institutions. “The vast majority of abortions — more than 70% — in commercial institutions are done with medication,” says Lyubov Erofeeva. “And in this case, the clinic buys drugs directly from the manufacturer and reports for each pill, that is, the number of abortion cards must correspond to the number of drugs used. In addition, in 2018, the Ministry of Health introduced very strict requirements for licensing the activities of private clinics that provide such a service, so a mosquito will not undermine their noses there.”
According to Nikolai Bespalov, Development Director at RNC Pharma, the total consumption of drugs for medical abortions in 2022 amounted to 1.4 million packs, an increase of about 60% compared to 2021. 2022, notes Mr. Bespalov, showed a record volume of consumption of such drugs, more or less comparable figures were recorded only in 2018 and 2020.
In the first five months of 2023, consumption of misoprostol and mifepristone at abortion doses began to decline.
“Pharmacy accounts for a very small number of sales of these drugs, no more than 2-3% of the total volume, or about 23-25 thousand packages per year. And this does not mean that all this volume is used for abortions at home. Most likely, these drugs are purchased just in the interests of “gray” clinics. True, the number of such “gray” procedures is likely to be much higher,” says Mr. Bespalov.
BestDoctor and EMC clinics did not respond to Kommersant’s request. According to the founder of the federal network of multidisciplinary medical centers “Clinic Fomin” Dmitry Fomin, the number of abortion procedures exceeds half a million, and according to some estimates, reaches 1.2 million per year. Mr. Fomin is aware of a “large number” of unscrupulous players who perform the abortion procedure with violations, including non-observance of seven days of silence. “In turn, most of the market players treat this as responsibly as possible, follow the rules and carry out the procedure officially,” continues Mr. Fomin. “For example, our network of clinics does not terminate a pregnancy if the fetus has a heartbeat.” The chief gynecologist of MEDSI Anatoly Tyan said that termination of pregnancy is carried out only in those clinics where a license for this type of activity is issued, and compliance with the “48 hours of silence” or “week of silence” is a prerequisite.
The proposal to retain the possibility of abortion only in state clinics “definitely violates the rights of patients to receive services for a fee or at the expense of compulsory medical insurance, which are enshrined in federal law No. 323-FZ,” says medical lawyer Irina Gritsenko. medical activity. Therefore, if there is one, the institution has the right to provide medical services. To realize the slogan “abortion only in a public hospital”, it is necessary either to limit the rights of the patient, or to adopt new licensing legislation.” In addition, Mrs. Gritsenko points out, from September 1, new rules for the provision of paid medical services are introduced. They state, in particular, that medical services at the expense of compulsory medical insurance are provided only if there are indications: “It turns out that if abortion services can be provided only by state organizations for compulsory medical insurance, then if a woman only wishes, she will be refused. This will lead to the growth of illegal abortion centers, which will increase the death rate in this medical care.”
[ad_2]
Source link
