Public hospitals ‘not transparent’ with abortion referral criteria, doctors say
GPs need transparent information on abortion options, says Dr Heather McNamee
Public hospitals present themselves as last-resort options for abortion, using restrictive or hidden referral criteria to push patients into the private sector, GP researchers say.
Their study of the HealthPathways referral network found that two-thirds of public abortion services listed either warned GPs to prioritise private providers or spelled out restrictive criteria for accepting patients.
These included “medical or obstetrically complex patients only” or “fetal abonormality or fetal death in utero only”.
Out of the 17 HealthPathways in the study, five did not list any public abortion services.
