Abortion care in the time of COVID-19: an illustration of how to adapt medical care during a pandemic

Shortly after the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, a comprehensive guideline was released by the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists documenting the changes that were acceptable to enable this essential service to continue to provide care to women. Abortion care providers had to act quickly to adapt their services; increasing the use of telemedicine and reducing the number of visits to hospitals and clinics in order to reduce risk to women requesting termination of pregnancy and making safe abortion accessible. Important changes to legislation were paramount in making this possible, as were changes to the tests done prior to an early medical abortion including omission of routine ultrasound scan and blood tests in low risk women. Medication to induce abortion along with analgesia and contraception were sent by post to eligible women to enable early medical abortion at home. Despite some initial concerns, studies have shown these changes to be safe and there is hope amongst abortion care providers that these changes could be here to stay.