100 women of 2024: Dr Mary Favier and Dr Trish Horgan believe 'women are getting a world class service'
Horgan And Trish Dr Favier Picture: Gps Parklands Surgery, Mary Of Mons Practice Road (left) Broadlane Cork Of O'hare Eddie Blackpool Dr
Women in Ireland take it for granted today that terminations are available through hundreds of GPs; local, accessible and comforting at a difficult time.
But there was a moment when things could have been different, when the plan could have seen a few large clinics instead and maybe only in cities. Some GPs, many Cork-based, stepped into that uncertainty with a vision for something different.
Dr Mary Favier remembers one pivotal chat during the Repeal campaign with then minister for health Simon Harris.
“He was saying if it all goes well, we’ll have to plan the service, so I took my opportunity to describe what I thought the service might look like,” she said. “He was quite taken aback – not in a bad way but in the sense of ‘oh, there’s another way of doing it. We need to talk about that’.”
She was co-founder of Doctors for Choice (Ireland) in 2002, on the board of Global Doctors for Choice and, around the time of the vote, she became Irish College of General Practitioners vice-president which allowed her to bring GP suggestions to the table.
Up to then, no other country offered medical terminations in this way so even working out which tablets to use was a challenge. This innovative approach was “very well supported” by the HSE, she said.
She had “the horrors” about a potential clinic system, worried it would not be financially sustainable as a standalone service.
“(Medical termination) is a very safe procedure, very well tolerated. There is absolutely no reason why it can’t be local, though GPs do need hospital support,” she said.
Dr Trish Horgan, also a GP in Cork and a fellow member of START (Southern Task-Force On Abortion & Reproductive Topics) says the service is not only safe and effective for women but rewarding for doctors involved. She oversees an online chat
platform which has grown to 460 GP-members where they exchange information on terminations and related topics.
“It’s normalised very well within the practices that are providing the service, but I think broadly speaking, it still remains a stigmatised service," she said.
START “certainly facilitated” setting up the service, she said, pointing out that male and female GPs volunteered to learn and establish this within months of the referendum result.
“It’s incredible and women say that sometimes when they come in — ‘I’m so glad I don’t have to travel’. They’ll say it’s so lovely to be looked after at home and it’s really nice for us to be able to do that,” she said.
Both doctors are hopeful more GPs will get involved, saying women in some counties still have lower access than others.
- Dr Mary Favier and Dr Trish Horgan are two of our 100 women of 2024. Read the full list here.