Background
Giving women access to family planning and safe abortion services are key when it comes to reducing a country’s maternal mortality rates. Abortion is highly restricted in Uganda and many women who have unsafe, illegal abortions experience health complications which can be fatal. These women are often in need of post-abortion care to treat infections and other problems they may be experiencing, but they also need access to contraceptive methods in order to be able to choose whether they want to become pregnant or not in the future. At Mulago Hospital in Kampala, 14,4% of all post-abortion patients were given family planning counseling and only 3,8% of them received a contraceptive method in connection to this.

About the project
This project was created to improve access to post-abortion family planning services in the emergency gynecological ward at Mulago Hospital. The project team worked with the hospital staff to strengthen post-abortion counseling, increase the utilization of existing services and strengthen the linkages between the emergency gynaecological ward and the voluntary sterilization providers at the hospital. They also introduced two types of contraceptive implants as options for long-term family planning.

Results
By the end of the project, the number of post-abortion patients who received family planning counseling increased from 14,4% to 28%. 67,7% of the patients counseled chose a contraceptive method, out of which 11% opted for the newly introduced implants. The project team are now planning to scale up the family planning services to the postnatal wards in Mulago Hospital.

Year: 2010