Ministry of Health, Republic of Moldova
As reported in this newsletter earlier this year, regarding telemedicine for medical abortion in Moldova, which has been possible for several years, but was banned by the MoH in January 2025, in spite of its excellent safety record and wide support.
In May 2025 the Ministry of Health of Moldova ordered the Ob-Gyn Committee to revise the existing National Safe Abortion Standards, ignoring their own approved modality on how a clinical protocol should be updated. For example, they did not include the national experts, colleagues from WHO in the meeting, which their protocol recommends. My colleagues who support telemedicine for medical abortion and who are part of the Ob-Gyn Committee, have told me that since that January ruling, nothing has been done or changed. There is a national election in Moldova in September 2025, so everybody is waiting to see who will be members of the Parliament and who will be the new Minister of Health.
In the meantime, we have had a meeting with Amnesty International and discussed possible next steps to express our recommendations and protests.
SOURCE: Rodica Comendant, Director, Reproductive Health Training Centre / Regional SRHR Coalition, Associate Professor, State Medical University, Moldova. E-mail: 10 July 2025.