The safe use of contraceptives as a business has immensely eliminated unsafe abortions in Liberia.
Local clinic owners and private pharmacists have revealed that the use of family planning and other contraceptives has immensely dropped the rate of abortion in the country which is being attributed to the massive awareness carried out by a group known as Dkt Liberia.
According to local pharmacists and clinic operators in Liberia, in time past, at least seven persons were admitted for abortion procedure every month at their facilities regardless of the state of the unwanted pregnancy.
They said young teenagers personally purchased abortion pills thereby informing pharmacists that either they did not want to keep the pregnancies to rain poverty on themselves or born children by chance which might cause them to suffer in of single parenting.
Speaking to a Senior Pharmacist at the Sumbay Medical Center on the Robertsfield Highway, Denis Weah said before the popularization of family planning products in his clinic, the was a high sales of the abortion pills as well as a daily procedure of abortions.
He added that people came with early cases less than three months frequently while others came with over due cases or those above four months but at slower rate.
However, Pharmacist Weah explained that the abortion products that were usually brought from his facility have lost relevance because the demand for it has become so scares on the market.
The management of the Cash and Carry Pharmacy in Monrovia also said that his business has gone through a loss on two major occasions because after he placed in his order for the abortion products, the medicines remained on his selves untill expiration.
“We have been ordering products for abortion at this pharmacy since our establishment. We first started four to five years ago when the products were in demand,” the manager explained.
He revealed that, “But since we started selling contraceptive pills and other family planning pills, the abortion pills has drop in its sales.”
The Clay Street Pharmacy owner attributed the wide spread awareness by Dkt Liberia on the Lydia contraceptive products to the cause for the irrelevance given to abortion products by the public.
According to the manager who is only identified as Dr. P, the contraceptive products have helped them drop the rate of abortions even though they are still losing in purchasing the products.
“We used to conduct at least five abortions in a very professional form monthly, but since the awareness in the various communities by Dkt increased within just less than two years, we hardly get two persons even in six months” he added. C. Winnie Saywah-Jimmy reports- #SRHRdialogue