COUNSELLING THE PATIENT WITH THE UNPLANNED PREGNANCY – GENERAL INFORMATION
Here it was easy for the adults, including the doctor, to take over and decide what was best. It may be that the nurse was less of an authority figure or that by suggesting a date, made the abortion suddenly seem imminent. However, the nurse let the girl know that her feelings were important. The outcome was apparently the same but in the end the girl made her own decision. The prospects for her emotional adjustment to the abortion (Hutchinson, 1992) and for family harmony seemed greatly improved.
Just as the patient may not make her decision without being influenced by those around her, neither does the doctor work in isolation. Someone has to carry out the abortion, nurse the patient and, in the hard-pressed NHS, possibly make the decision as to which patient is most deserving of a hospital bed. This is obviously easier in one of the private charitable organizations dedicated to providing an efficient abortion service. Although no-one may complain at an extra patient attending the antenatal clinic, an extra abortion on an operating list may cause exasperation. This author is unfortunately aware that her counselling is more relaxed when she has plenty of beds at her disposal than when an admission would involve several telephone calls. If a woman decides to continue her pregnancy, this doctor sometimes wonders if she is relieved because she has made the best decision for her patient, or because she has saved a bed. One is aware of the warm glow in the staff (and oneself?) whenever a patient changes her mind and keeps the baby, and how in some quarters this is regarded as a success. Helping to prevent a woman from having an abortion she will live to regret is obviously a favourable outcome but it is a very limited measure of success. A decision to continue with the pregnancy may not necessarily be in the woman’s best interests.
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