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 Health & Beauty | April 2007 
Capital Clinics Brace for Greater Demand
 Kelly Arthur Garrett - The Herald Mexico
| | Pro-choice activists dressed as Roman Catholic clergy celebrate outside of the City Leislature in Mexico City, Tuesday April 24, 2007. Mexico City lawmakers voted 46-19 to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Opponents have vowed to challenge the new law before the Supreme Court. (AP/Dario Lopez-Mills) |
Mexico City´s liberal new abortion law takes effect Friday, with city officials promising the public health system is ready to meet the expected increase in demand.
City Health Secretary Manuel Mondragón said Thursday preparations have already been made for 14 of the 28 municipally operated hospitals to provide pregnancy interruption procedures to capital residents free of charge.
Non-residents will be treated only in emergency situations.
The new law, passed Tuesday by the Federal District Legislative Assembly (ALDF) and published in the city´s official gazette Thursday, allows 60 days for the city government to establish guidelines and procedures for implementing the requirement to provide service to women unable to use private hospitals or clinics.
Mondragón said guidelines could be published by next week, and those 858 physicians and 1,875 nurses will receive additional training in pregnancy interruption procedures.
But since health care providers in the city system have already been terminating pregnancies in special cases such as rape and genetic defects, the service is ready to go, the health secretary said.
"We have the medications, the equipment and the personnel in place," Mondragón said. "Everything is ready."
Just how many women will seek city services to terminate unwanted pregnancies is unclear.
Health Secretariat figures indicate the city system has terminated about 7,000 pregnancies per year since the "Robles Law," which specified four exceptions to the then-existing prohibition of abortion. The Robles Law was enacted in 2002.
The number of annual clandestine abortions in the capital is estimated to be four times greater than that.
Those figures suggest the 14 hospitals could each see on average seven patients per day seeking interruption of a pregnancy. Mondragón said the number may be more or less than that, but insists the system can handle this without any budget increases.
Complicating the calculations is the refusal by Calderón administration officials to allow the newly legal procedures to be performed in federal Social Security hospitals located in the Federal District (Mexico City). The ruling National Action Party (PAN) opposed the abortion legalization law on "pro-life" grounds, but Juan Molinar Horcasitas, director general of the national Social Security System (IMSS) cited legal restrictions.
"IMSS cannot offer this kind of medical care in any of its facilities anywhere in the country," he said Thursday. "IMSS regulations don´t include such interventions."
Molinar´s stance means IMSS members, as well as public employees who use the ISSSTE system, will be referred to the Federal District system.
Normally, those covered by IMSS or ISSSTE are not eligible for public health care in the city system. But the new law, perhaps anticipating resistance from the conservative federal government, makes an exception in the case of pregnancy termination.
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard indicated his government will seek to pressure IMSS and ISSSTE into honoring the right of women in the Federal District to interrupt unwanted pregnancies up through the 12th week. He said the federal Social Security hospitals in the capital already are terminating pregnancies in accordance with the Robles Law.
"Why that one but not this one?" he asked.
Mondragón, along with city Education Secretary Axel Didriksson, also announced Thursday an ambitious outreach campaign. The goal is to inform women of their reproductive options, to promote birth control and family planning, and to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. |
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