In its first six months of operations since its launch in August 2020, FPAS Malta has helped a total of 203 clients by providing information on reproductive health and signposting to appropriate services.
The chat function on our website www.fpas.mt or on the website of Doctors for Choice www.doctorsforchoice.mt (which is also handled by FPAS) was by far the most preferred communication medium with 121 clients making use of it.
Calls to our standard rate numbers 27780037 and 20341686, as well as to our freephone 80062857, were the second most preferred communication medium with 59 clients calling us in the first six months.
An additional 17 clients contacted us on WhatsApp (number +356 20341686) and 6 clients contacted us by email.
Whenever a client contacted us via more than one medium, the medium that they used first is the only one counted in these statistics.
The majority of queries were related to abortion. Other common queries were about the risk of pregnancy after unprotected sex or contraception failure, about the morning after pills, and about long acting reversible contraception such as implants and IUDs.
We consider these numbers to be high, and symptomatic of an unmet need for reproductive healthcare in Malta. Until such a time when women and girls in Malta can access proper reproductive health services freely through the Maltese publicly funded health system, FPAS Malta volunteers will continue to be there to provide information and guidance to women and girls seeking such services. We are here to help.
A special thanks goes to Women on Web and Women Help Women for providing abortion telemedicine services to women who cannot travel due to the pandemic, and to Abortion Support Network for supporting women from Malta to travel abroad for abortions despite the added costs and bureaucracy during the pandemic.