I have good news and I have bad news.
The good news is that Quebec's abortion rates appear to be decreasing. The bad news is that what CIHI reports for Quebec abortions is under reported by at least 20%.
I did a freedom of information request of Quebec Health RAMQ. This is what I asked for:
1. The number of abortions done in a Canadian province, other than Quebec, reimbursed by RAMQ, as well as the total cost, for each of the last five years, broken down by hospital, by clinic, and by physician's office.
2. The number abortions done in Quebec, reimbursed by RAMQ, as well as the total cost, for each of the last five years, broken down by hospital, by clinic, and by physician's office.
3. The number abortions done in the United States, reimbursed by RAMQ, as well as the total cost, for each of the last five years.Below are scans of what I received back. Sorry for the poor quality.
The first three scans are the numbers of abortions done in Quebec, and the last scan is of the abortions done in a province outside of Quebec.
Ignoring the 2019 stats (the year isn't finished yet) and the 2014 stats (doesn't seem to be online anymore at CIHI's site), I looked at 2015, 2016 and 2017 and compared them to CIHI's numbers.
Here they are (and for this calculation I ignored the out of province abortions so the actual abortions are even higher than this):
2015 RAMQ/CIHI 29,036/24,193 (difference of 4,843)
2016 RAMQ/CIHI 28,086/23,393 (difference of 4,693)
2017 RAMQ/CIHI 27,621/22,966 (difference of 4,655)
For the abortions done out of province, I noticed something interesting. For those done under "Services professionels" (380 of them), the average cost was about $308. For those done under "Services hospitaliers" the average cost was about $1,580. It seems probable that these are late-term abortions because of the much higher cost.
Regarding abortions done if the US, I was told:
"Furthermore, we wish to inform you that we have not reimbursed any abortion performed in the US." [sic]
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