Stop using illegal abortions, pleads KZN MEC
KwaZulu-Natal health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo has urged the province’s residents to be proactive against illegal abortions.
|||Durban – KwaZulu-Natal health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo on Friday urged the province’s residents to be proactive against illegal abortions.
Dhlomo, who led two marches in the uThukela (Ladysmith) and Mzunyathi (Dundee) districts to highlight the problem of illegal abortions, on Friday urged residents to report any actions related to illegal abortions to law enforcement agencies.
He also urged residents to report posters offering illegal abortions.
Dhlomo said he believed the province’s campaign against illegal abortions was paying dividends and urged provincial health care staff not to pass moral judgement on those seeking abortions.
“It has been brought to my attention that some healthcare professionals passed moral judgment on young people when they sought reproductive health services. This is a contributing factor to the rate of illegal abortions, and needs to stop,” he said.
A study by the South African Medical Research Council in 2010 reported that 49 percent of abortions involved young people between the ages of 13 and 19 and that these took place outside a hospital or clinic.
When he presented his department’s budget speech in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, Dhlomo said the number of women who presented themselves for early termination of pregnancy at KwaZulu-Natal provincial health facilities had increased from 2912 in the second quarter of the 2015/16 financial year to 3375 in the third quarter.
African News Agency
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