CIHI missing 18,278 Ontario abortions in 2019 statistics

CIHI has reported abortion numbers for 2019

Back in December I posted a comparison chart of CIHI's numbers compared to FOI's I did for each province.

CIHI reported 27,911 for Ontario for 2019. The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) reported 46,189. that means that CIHI is not reporting a whopping 18,278 Ontario abortions.

CIHI believes they are accounting for the difference. Unfortunately they are not. From CIHI's notes:

"The methodology to estimate induced abortion volumes for Ontario is consistent with the enhanced methodology that was introduced in the 2015 report (emphasis added). Total volumes were derived by using the total abortion volumes reported to the National Physician Database (NPDB) at CIHI and adding both hospital-based abortions for non-Ontario residents and hospital-based medical-method-only abortions for Ontario residents (as reported to the Discharge Abstract Database and the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System). For Ontario, volumes reported in the column Number of induced abortions reported by clinics include services from non-hospital settings. Volumes for non-hospital settings (clinics/surgical facilities/physician offices) were estimated using the total abortion volumes as described above and subtracting hospital-based abortions. This methodology results in induced abortions occurring in physician offices and in clinics being included in non-hospital settings volumes. This estimation approach for non-hospital volumes was required because information on the location where the service is rendered (e.g., clinic, hospital, physician’s office) may not be included in the NPDB data." 

CIHI does not report medical abortions. They only report these abortions: S752 - induced - by any surgical technique up to and including 14 weeks gestation, S785 - induced - by any surgical technique after 14 weeks of gestation. 

How many of these 18,278 missing abortions are medical abortions? We do not know.

MOHLTC does report medical abortions. As well as all these types:

A920A - MEDICAL MANAGEMENT OF EARLY PREGNANCY - INITIAL VISIT (medical abortions)
P001A MEDICAL MGMT FETAL DEMISE BETWEEN 14-20 WKS GESTATION
P054A FETAL MANAGEMENT-SGL/MULT-INTRACARDIAC KCL INJECTION
S752A FEM.GENITAL SYST.-INDUCED-CURRETINTRA-AMNIOTIC INJ.
S770A CORPUS UTERI - HYSTEROTOMY.
S783A CORPUS UTERI - HYSTEROTOMY WITH TUBAL INTERRUPTION.
S785A FEM.GENITAL SYST.-INDUCED-INTRA-AMNIOTIC INJ. (INCOMP.)