Interstate abortion seekers face ban

NSW hospitals have threatened to start turning away abortion cases sent to them from boycotting Queensland hospitals within days, after three patients were sent over the border this week.

NSW hospitals have threatened to start turning away abortion cases sent to them from boycotting Queensland hospitals within days, after three patients were sent over the border this week.

The secretary of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Gino Pecoraro, said yesterday NSW hospitals had told the Royal Women's Hospital in Brisbane they would review their willingness to carry out abortions on Queensland patients from next week.

"I know of at least one woman who has been transferred to Sydney to have a termination," Dr Pecoraro told The Australian.

"Colleagues at the Royal Women's Hospital have told me that arrangement is not indefinite. NSW hospitals have said until the end of the week they were able to do that, but beyond that they would have to review it."

At least four Queensland hospitals -- the Royal Women's Hospital, Logan, Mackay and Rockhampton -- banned abortions this month and Cairns hospital was yesterday awaiting legal advice.

Obstetricians at those hospitals are refusing to carry out abortions until the Bligh government decriminalises abortion or gives doctors assurances they will not be prosecuted.

Queensland Health yesterday revealed that three women had been given referrals "interstate" this week. "The decision on whether or not to take up those referrals is a matter for those patients," it said in a statement.

"These are referrals between specialist doctors made for clinical reasons. Cross-border referrals are not uncommon and are a long-standing, ongoing part of the Australian Health Care Agreement."

A NSW Health Department spokesman said he knew of only one patient sent to NSW.

Doctors in Queensland and NSW negotiated between themselves whether to refer patients interstate for medical reasons, he said, and the referral system was "indefinite", although a hospital could decline to take interstate patients if it lacked the beds, staff or equipment.

"Whether it's for a termination or for burns victims, it's decided on clinical grounds and generally from clinician to clinician," the spokesman said. "It's entirely based on one jurisdiction being able to help another."

Queensland Health Minister Paul Lucas yesterday refused to give medical groups any guarantee doctors would not be charged with a crime for performing abortions, despite 14,000 being carried out last year.

He told Dr Pecoraro and Jane Schmitt, the chief executive of the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association, that no doctors had been charged with procuring an abortion for 20years.

The Queensland doctors' abortion ban began last week after police charged a 19-year-old Cairns woman and her boyfriend with criminal offences involving an allegedly self-administered abortion using the drugs RU486 and misoprostol, smuggled from overseas.

State cabinet on Monday endorsed changes to Queensland's criminal code by widening a legal loophole to protect doctors who performed abortions.

Section 282 of the code allows doctors to carry out surgical abortions in order to save the mother's life.

The legal loophole will now be widened to include pregnancies terminated with pharmaceuticals such as the abortion drug RU486.

Mr Pecoraro, who is also president-elect of the Queensland AMA, said the law reform was a "first step" but doctors wanted abortion decriminalised.

"If it is a procedure that is offered in Queensland hospitals, we would like our doctors at least not to worry about legal issues when they're carrying out their day-to-day jobs," he said.