Family & Life

Crisis Pregnancy Agency Challenged—‘Why I’m Binning New Crisis Pregnancy Guide’ : 6th Mar 08

CPA—' When You Attempt to Get Beyond the Spin, you can be Looking in Vain for Some Substance": "We Might Closely Consider the Existence of the CPA as it Currently Operates"

Dr Brendan O’Shea, writing in the "Irish Medical News" recently, said… In decluttering and restoring the Feng Shui of the office, I came across two tomes, namely the General Practitioners Cancer Referral Guidelines, courtesy of the HSE, which has now been binned, while the other, presently balancing on a knife edge, is rather crunchily titled Keycontact. It is presented as an information and service directory for community and healthcare professionals, with the ultimate presumed objective of assisting and preventing individuals subjecting themselves to the trauma of unplanned pregnancy.

The Crisis Pregnancy Agency, whence this publication came, is currently up and running for five years. This year, if I am reading it correctly, it has a budget of no less than a cool €8 million. When you attempt to get beyond the spin, you can be looking in vain for some substance. There is the current €8 million per year price tag.

Keycontact: between the covers. So, looking between the covers of this rather nicely put together directory, presumably sent to many hundreds of my GP buddies (at a cost of how many thousands?), I asked myself, what was the relevance of this, and how might it usefully impact on my own management in this area. Would it add anything new to the support and assistance I was already providing to individuals attending who were grappling with the great difficulties caused by unplanned pregnancy? Would it in any real way help out with the difficulties faced by adolescents accessing my service as it is presently available to them?

Well, there was indeed comprehensive and even exhaustive listings of agencies all over the place, like, for example, the West Cork Crisis Pregnancy Service, or the Caraphort Family Support Centre in Mullingar, and indeed many others. I have to profess myself deeply happy for them in West Cork, and indeed in Mullingar, but I, in Kildare, was wondering why ever the benighted authors of this directory thought for a moment I would have any interest in these things.

Elsewhere, there were the usual earth shattering realities presented in a most tender and painful manner; there were, we are given to understand, three, and only three possible outcomes when a woman experiences an unplanned pregnancy would you believe? She can continue, she can terminate or she can go for adoption. Wow! Would you ever believe that ?

Consumed with a rather human and myopic sense of my own importance, I was keen to observe how we GPs appear to fit into this Crisis Pregnancy Agency vision of the fight to reduce unplanned pregnancy. The more rational, thinking part of me knows that my 2,500 colleagues and I are superbly placed, and in fact provide by far the highest volume of consultations and support in all the relevant areas here, including contraception, availability to support individuals in crisis, and follow-up care.

If I thought for a moment this would lead to a little bit of a spin in our reported place in the overall scheme of things, well, I was wrong. If I thought that any of those disgraceful deficits in the GMS scheme would be highlighted, either in the Keycontact Directory, or on the flowery website, then I was wrong again. There was no mention whatsoever regarding the facts that cervical smears are not covered under the medical card, nor are Implanon insertions. Nor was there a hint of criticism regarding the total inadequate level of focused resourcing available under the medical card scheme for a typical 34-year-old woman under the primary care capitation.

In the end So, the Keycontact Directory got binned. We, in general practice, do not need the lovely people of the CPA to advise us how to do our job. And, unless the key statistic for Irish women travelling for abortions begins to fall meaningfully, we might closely consider the existence of the CPA as it currently operates, after its five years of loveliness." Irish Medical News. February 25. CLICK TO READ MORE.....

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Family & Life

Crisis Pregnancy Agency Challenged—‘Why I’m Binning New Crisis Pregnancy Guide’ : 6th Mar 08

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