You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Personal view
Telemedicine for medical abortion in France: a difficult challenge
  1. Philippe Faucher
  1. Service de Gynécologie Obstétrique Hôpital Trousseau DMU Origyne, Paris, France
  1. Correspondence to Dr Philippe Faucher, Family Planning, Hôpitaux Universitaires Est Parisien, Paris, France; philippe.faucher{at}aphp.fr

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2021-201093

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    A recent publication in this journal highlighted the lack of coordinated policy responses across Europe towards provision of abortion care during the current COVID-19 pandemic.1 In April 2020, during the period of total confinement (‘lockdown’) decreed by the French government, exceptional legislation was introduced to facilitate the provision of medical abortion at home. Before COVID-19, medical abortion was authorised at home until 7 weeks of amenorrhea and approved providers were midwives and doctors (general practitioners and obstetricians/gynaecologists), working in private offices or in public abortion clinics. The new regulations that were introduced increased the gestational limit for medical abortion up to 9 weeks (63 days’ amenorrhea) and also authorised telemedicine for consultations.2 At the same time, a new system was introduced with community pharmacies whereby the abortion provider could send a prescription for the abortion medications (mifepristone and misoprostol) by email to a pharmacy chosen by the woman. The pharmacist could then dispense the drugs directly to the woman and the pharmacy was then reimbursed by Public Health Insurance. With the former (pre-COVID-19) model it was the provider who bought the drugs at the pharmacy and gave them directly to the woman during …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.