Midwives and Post-abortion Care in Gabon: “Things have really changed”

Complications from spontaneous and induced abortion are a primary cause of death of women in sub-Saharan Africa. Le Réseau d’Afrique Centrale pour la Santé Reproductive des Femmes: Gabon, Cameroun, Guinée Équatoriale (the Middle African Network for Women’s Reproductive Health, or GCG as it is commonly known) was founded in 2009 to identify and overcome obstacles to post-abortion care in Gabon. Research identified the main obstacle as lack of emergency skills and provisions among first-line health care providers. To fill the lacuna, GCG designed a program to train midwives in manual vacuum aspiration (MVA), misoprostol protocols, and the insertion of T-shaped copper IUDs. This article presents a nine-year retrospective (2009–2018) of the program. Qualitative and quantitative results confirm correlations between midwives’ practice of MVA in health centers and spectacular decreases in treatment delays, with corresponding decreases in mortality from abortion complications. Our findings also demonstrate how these advances have been threatened by opposition to midwife practice in certain urban medical centers despite encouragement by the Gabon Ministry of Health to use the new protocols. Women’s human right to the highest attainable standard of health, including access to safe abortion, is an assumption that GCG shares with the 40 African countries that have ratified the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. The training program illustrates how a direct-action strategy can fully equip medical practitioners, especially those in peripheral sites with meager resources, to provide emergency post-abortion and abortion care even before governments legislate their human rights commitment.