Adapting Remote Abortion Services in Colombia

The Fundación Oriéntame was established in Colombia in 1977, to provide safe post-abortion or abortion services, according to the law at different moments in time. Dr. Maria Vivas has been the executive director since 2019, and has been with the organization for over a decade.

Since Oriéntame’s work was based on in-person services, COVID-19 and the accompanying shelter-in-place measures posed a clear threat to the organization’s mission. But Orientame’s team was determined to keep providing services. Despite numerous politically-motivated regulatory investigations, Dr. Vivas and her team were able to continue services in two formats: through the launch of a fully remote, telemedicine abortion service, and through the adaptation of in-person services in selected clinics to be COVID-compliant. 

To achieve this, Dr. Vivas and her team needed to solve a range of technical challenges in telemedicine and virtual service delivery, and to sustain regulatory compliance in the face of anti-choice activists. They also found ways to get the message out to women in remote regions, beyond the service area of their clinics, so the new, telemedicine-based approach would be accessible. Through innovation-friendly leadership and organizational agility, Oriéntame managed to keep existing services operational and launch innovative remote services that will continue on beyond the pandemic.