(Fredericton) Fredericton’s private abortion clinic says it has finally closed its doors, citing steep rent increases and a lack of funding from the provincial government.
A notice on Clinic 554’s website says abortion care ended Wednesday. Its medical director, Dr Adrian Edgar, said he can no longer pay the rent because the province does not fund abortions performed outside the hospital. The final straw was the doubling of the clinic’s rent, which is expected to take effect Thursday, he said in an interview.
“We do not receive any public funding. And without public funding, you can’t make health care work and, most importantly, you can’t make health care work if expenses are increasing like they are,” lamented Dr Edgar.
The doctor has already announced several times that the clinic would close, and in 2019 the fate of the clinic became an issue in the federal election campaign. This time, Adrian Edgar said the doors are closing for good and he has no plans to reopen anywhere else.
The clinic provides abortions to people who do not have health insurance cards, such as migrant workers, the homeless and international students in the Maritime provinces. Dr Edgar maintains that he charged much less of the uninsured than the hospitals.
Surgical abortion services are now only available in New Brunswick in two hospitals: the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Center in Moncton and the Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst.
The Dr Edgar pointed out that the province has the strictest abortion laws in the country. “New Brunswick has illegally undermined access to abortion in Canada since the 1980s,” he said.
A “fundamental right”
After Fredericton’s Morgentaler Clinic closed in 2014, citing a lack of provincial funding, the Liberal government at the time removed a regulation requiring women seeking hospital abortions to have two doctors certify that the procedure was medically safe. necessary. But regulations limiting funding to abortions performed in hospitals remained.
Sean Hatchard, spokesperson for Health Minister Bruce Fitch, said New Brunswick is fully committed to the principles of the Canada Health Act. Abortions are publicly funded in New Brunswick through surgical abortions in hospitals or medical abortions with the pill Mifegymiso, he said by email.
“The introduction of Mifegymiso as an alternative method of abortion has reduced the demand for surgical abortions in New Brunswick. It is now the predominant form of abortion in our province and accounts for two-thirds of all abortions in New Brunswick,” he explained.
Responding to questions about the closure of the Fredericton clinic, federal Health Minister Mark Holland told reporters in Ottawa that it was essential that abortion services remain available. He called them a “fundamental right” for women everywhere in the country.
“So it is not acceptable, not at all, to close a clinic or have a situation like this. This threatens women’s health,” he lamented. Mr. Holland said he needed to “take some time to assess the situation” and planned to speak to Mr. Fitch.
The Dr Edgar argued the province needs to change its policy to ensure everyone who needs it has access to abortion.
It is not only people who fall through the cracks, such as the homeless, migrant workers and international students, who are affected, but others too due to the lack of doctors, he said. stressed, adding that the shortage of doctors means that some women do not have immediate access to the contraceptive pill.
“I think Canada should pay attention to what’s happening in New Brunswick, because I don’t want us to follow what’s happening in the United States,” he concluded.