New York Metropolis plans to offer free abortion pills at 4 sexual health clinics as early as Wednesday, a city-funded enlargement that seeks to additional break down boundaries to abortion in low-income communities, Mayor Eric Adams introduced Tuesday.
“New York City has always been a beacon of leadership in this nation, and we’re going to continue to lead,” stated Adams throughout a wide-ranging speech on girls’s health at Metropolis Corridor.
In contrast to hospitals, the city-run health clinics don’t ask sufferers about their insurance coverage standing and have historically sought to offer health care to probably the most marginalized.
The 4 clinics may probably ship as much as 10,000 abortion pills a yr, in keeping with health officers.
The primary rollout will happen Wednesday at a sexual health clinic within the Morrisania part of the Bronx. Three different city-run clinics in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens are slated to dispense the medicine by the tip of the yr as a part of a $1.2 million package deal that features a broader array of health care companies, metropolis officers stated throughout a information convention following the mayor’s deal with.
Presently, the town presents abortion pills — that are utilized in greater than half of all U.S. abortions — at its 11 public hospitals. However these hospitals, that are run individually from the town’s health division, usually search to invoice medicaid or insurance coverage firms.
The town’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, stated a part of the rationale the rollout would take as much as a yr was resulting from federally mandated coaching for health care employees who distribute abortion pills.
“We’re going to build upon the access to care that we have in our public hospital system,” Vasan stated. “We’re going to supplant that with our public clinics — our truly public clinics — that are walk-up, all access.”
Dr. Jay Varma, a former senior health advisor for Mayor Invoice de Blasio who beforehand oversaw the revitalization of the town’s sexual health clinics, praised New York Metropolis for “serving as a leader in ensuring access to abortion medications.”
He added: “As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, local health agencies must be ready to step in when the federal government is not able to ensure access to essential medications and services to protect health,” he stated.