The Rural Doctors Association of Victoria (RDAV) has released a position paper supporting the rights of women to sexual and reproductive control.
RDAV Maternity Working Group chair Louise Manning said there were many barriers to accessing termination services in rural Victoria.
“We know that women living in rural areas have higher rates of unplanned pregnancy, yet disproportionately experience increased difficulty in accessing both contraception and termination services,” Dr Manning said.
“Medical and surgical terminations are available in Australia, however, only 2850 of Australia’s 41,000 general practitioners are registered to prescribe a medical termination, and with not all public regional health services offering regular surgical lists, timely surgical termination services are out of reach for many rural Victorian women.
“RDAV believes that all Victorian women should be able to access safe and sanitary termination services in a timely manner regardless of their age, location, marital or Medicare status without stigma or discrimination.”
RDAV said to achieve this it needed:
• Workforce solutions that ensure enough Victorian rural doctors can provide the services required by their communities with respect to terminations and contraception care;
• Greater access to ultrasound services in rural communities;
• Improved education and support for rural doctors providing termination services;
• Increased promotion and access to telehealth services for rural communities, especially around termination services;
• Education and information sharing in school, clinical and community health settings regarding all contraceptive options, including long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) options; and
• Improved LARC training opportunities and renumeration for rural doctors.
“Global conversations around contraception and termination services make this the ideal time to highlight the issues faced by rural women in accessing safe, supportive and local reproductive medical care,” Dr Manning said.
“Greater investment is needed to ensure all women are able to access the care they need, regardless of their postcode, and RDAV will continue to advocate on behalf of our rural communities to work towards achieving this goal.”