BlueStar Ethiopia introduces medical abortion

Addis Ababa - MSI Ethiopia has recently started taking medical abortion outside of its own centres through its growing BlueStar franchise network. Initial results are very promising.

MSI Ethiopia has provided MSMP services through its own centres for some time now. However, when it decided to roll out the service and increase access to medical abortion outside of MSI Ethiopia centres, utilising BlueStar franchisees was an obvious solution.

Earlier this year, MSI Ethiopia provided medical abortion training to selected franchisees in Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar. It also established a new service referral network to tackle complications which, although rare, can arise following a medical abortion procedure.

BlueStar franchisee clinics that are close to MSI Ethiopia centres are linked with those centres for referral. Those franchisees which are not near MSI Ethiopia centres, but are close to a public facility or to another franchisee with someone who is trained on surgical abortion procedures are linked to either of those institutions.

Franchisees which are both distant from a MSI Ethiopia centre and appropriate public or private facilities will be trained on both medical and surgical procedures to enable them to handle complications by themselves.

The franchisees provided a total of 997 medical abortions between January and May 2009. It is anticipated that many more will be trained over the next six months giving the women of Ethiopia even greater access to a vital SRH service.

Category: Country pages