The Deputy Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Dr. Abdul-Razak Dokurugu says in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 that, pregnancies cannot be aborted with the use of contraceptives.
“Contraceptives are used to prevent pregnancies after an unprotected sex. Therefore, taking overdose of contraceptives with the hope to abort a pregnancy is worthless. The moment pregnancy occurs, the contraceptives have no more power to interrupt or terminate the pregnancy, whether it is needed or not,” Dr. Dokurugu said.
Dr. Dokurugu together with Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi, the Regional Director of GHS, launched a campaign ‘The Zero tolerance for maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion’ in the Upper East region. Overdose of contraceptives is a major issue rising here in the Upper East region a lot. This is causing early deaths and disabling persons. Dr. Dokurugu advised people who are pregnant but do not want it to visit health facilities instead of trying to abort themselves.
The Regional Director, Dr. Emmanuel Dzotsi says the government has made it easier and safer by rendering abortion care services at affordable prices to enable safe abortions. Unsafe abortion is really high in the Upper East region, with post-abortion being 25 cases and 3.0 percent being unsafe abortions. Some complications from unsafe abortions are severe bleeding and perforation. Journalists in the Upper East region are being called upon to be ambassadors of the campaign against unsafe abortion.
