Abortion care services in India can be provided by a defined cadre of providers as specified by the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971.
Ipas Development Foundation’s (IDF) ISO certified Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC) training program addresses a crucial gap in the public health system – a lack of providers trained and certified to offer abortion services in accordance with the law. Ipas India strengthens selected government medical college hospitals and district hospitals as CAC training centers. This includes training of selected ob-gyns and nurses at these hospitals to be CAC master trainers. They in turn train doctors from peripheral government hospitals and health centers. As required by the MTP Act, a provider is said to have completed training when he/she observes, assists and independently performs a total of 25 cases. Most of our trainees are general practitioners who are certified to offer legal abortion services through the CAC training.
Our CAC training intervention was piloted in three states (Bihar, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra) in 2002. Today, CAC trainings facilitated by IDF run seamlessly through 101 training centers across 10 states. Over the years, we have been able to facilitate the training of around 8000 providers; and helped them initiate provision of high-quality CAC services at their place of posting.
IDF has also made a significant contribution towards developing the national CAC training curricula – now adopted by the Government of India to standardize CAC trainings across the country.
IDF’s training initiative outcomes include:
- Trained workforce providing high-quality CAC services, even in remote parts of the country
- More women served
- Improved quality of care
- Initiation of CAC services at and improved functioning of government health facilities
- Stronger institutions and networks for reproductive health training and service delivery