Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy should be resumed by HDES during second half of 2023 - Communication

Secretaria Regional da Saúde e Desporto

The Regional Secretary for Health and Sport, Mónica Seidi, informed today that the Regional Government is working "to ensure that will be possible, once again, to carry out Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy procedures at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital (HDES) in Ponta Delgada during the second half of 2023, once the existing constraints are overcome."

The team has already been created. It is "composed of four doctors and six nurses who do not have conscientious objections to this procedure," emphasised the government official.

The ordinance defining the measures to be adopted in official or officially recognised health establishments with a view to carrying out the termination of pregnancy in the situations provided for in the Criminal Code was implemented in the Region in 2007. Since then, the Autonomous Region of the Azores has fully complied, as is legally required, with the provisions of the legislation in force.

Currently, the procedure is only performed at the Horta Hospital upon the availability of a specialist doctor (external health care provider).

All other patients in the Region are referred to the Clínica dos Arcos, a private health unit in Mainland Portugal.

According to Mónica Seidi, the creation of this service in Ponta Delgada, as a complement to the Horta Hospital, is an important step "to speed up these procedures, since there will now be two health institutions providing this service, in addition to the fact that a team has been established in Ponta Delgada.

However, it is essential to recall the strict time limits established by law from which the Azores are not exempt. There is always an initial consultation; the signing of consent, the ultrasound, the psychology consultation to be carried out during the reflection period and the provision of counselling by a social worker.

All these steps precede the intervention itself and must, according to the law, be scrupulously fulfilled, so that "there are always some legal constraints on the swiftness of these procedures."