Dr. Caitriona Henchion:

The IFPA has a specialist pregnancy counselling service. When we identify someone attending us who is going to fall outside the legislative conditions and will have to travel, we ensure that there is a catch-all so that we follow up with her from a mental health perspective as well as to offer a physical check-up afterwards. In the HSE model of care, that follow-up medical care is reimbursable. Many people might not be aware of this, so it needs to be more widely known. We are careful to try to bring those people back and ensure that they get whatever follow-up care is required, but it might not happen widely.

As Ms Taylor mentioned, if people are in the small minority who find themselves having to travel, particularly if it is just because they narrowly missed a gestational limit or their foetal anomalies were not considered severe enough, they are more stigmatised than people who had to travel ever were, as they are in this group that is considered not worthy of care here. They may be less likely to seek aftercare because they feel like they are in that very marginalised position.