posted on 2024-09-06, 07:12authored byDivya Parmar, Tiziana Leone, Ernestina Coast, Susan Fairley Murray, Eleanrand Hukin, Bellington Vwalika
Unsafe abortion is a significant but preventable cause of maternal mortality.
Although induced abortion has been legal in Zambia since 1972, many women still
face logistical, financial, social, and legal obstacles to access safe abortion services,
and undergo unsafe abortion instead. This study provides the first estimates of costs
of post abortion care (PAC) after an unsafe abortion and the cost of safe abortion in
Zambia. In the absence of routinely collected data on abortions, we used multiple
data sources: key informant interviews, medical records and hospital logbooks. We
estimated the costs of providing safe abortion and PAC services at the University
Teaching Hospital, Lusaka and then projected these costs to generate indicative cost
estimates for Zambia. Due to unavailability of data on the actual number of safe
abortions and PAC cases in Zambia, we used estimates from previous studies and
from other similar countries, and checked the robustness of our estimates with
sensitivity analyses. We found that PAC following an unsafe abortion can cost 2.5
times more than safe abortion care. The Zambian health system could save as much
as US$0.4 million annually if those women currently treated for an unsafe abortion
instead had a safe abortion.
History
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
Parmar, D., Leone, T., Coast, E., Murray, S., Hukin, E. and Vwalika, B. (2015) Cost of abortions
in Zambia: a comparison of safe abortion and post abortion care. Global Public Health, 12 (2), pp.236-249.