The contribution of research results to dramatic improvements in post-abortion care: Centre Hospitalier de Libreville, Gabon

In 2009, we published an article in RHM showing a large delay in provision of emergency obstetric care to women who died from unsafe abortion complications at the Centre Hospitalier de Libreville. The paper raised awareness among hospital and government authorities of a serious delay in timely treatment, and they supported the recommendation of the hospital's Maternal Mortality Committee to greatly reduce the delay and also improve the care of women with abortion complications. Training in manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) for uterine evacuation was introduced, for use by midwives as well as obstetrician-gynaecologists, with local anaesthesia. The mean delay in providing care to women with abortion complications in the 2008 findings was compared to data from the five months from 1 November 2011 through 31 March 2012. In 2008, all incomplete abortions were treated by physicians with dilatation & evacuation (D&C) or electric vacuum aspiration (EVA) with general anaesthesia. In 2011-12, two-thirds of women were treated with manual vacuum aspiration with local anaesthesia instead, one half of them by midwives. The mean delay between presentation and treatment was 18.0 hours in 2008 and 1.8 hours in 2011-12. The mean delay did not differ between women treated with MVA or D&C/EVA, nor if treated by midwives or physicians. (C) 2012 Reproductive Health Matters2040162