Research Article Access to Complex Abortion Care Service and Planning Improved through a Toll-Free Telephone Resource Line Wendy V. Norman, 1,2 Barbara Hestrin, 3 and Royce Dueck 2,4 1 Department of Family Practice, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z3 2 Contraception Access Research Team, Women’s Health Research Institute, BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 3N1 3 BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 3N1 4 Pregnancy Options Service, BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 3N1 Correspondence should be addressed to Wendy V. Norman; wendy.norman@ubc.ca Received 27 June 2013; Revised 8 November 2013; Accepted 5 January 2014; Published 13 February 2014 Academic Editor: Enrique Hernandez Copyright © 2014 Wendy V. Norman et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Providing equitable access to the full range of reproductive health services over wide geographic areas presents signiicant challenges to any health system. We present a review of a service provision model which has provided improved access to abortion care; support for complex issues experienced by women seeking nonjudgmental family planning health services; and a mechanism to collect information on access barriers. he toll-free pregnancy options service (POS) of British Columbia Women’s Hospital and Health Centre sought to improve access to services and overcome barriers experienced by women seeking abortion. Methods. We describe the development and implementation of a province-wide toll-free telephone counseling and access facilitation service, including establishment of a provincial network of local abortion service providers in the Canadian province of British Columbia from 1998 to 2010. Results. Over 2000 women annually access service via the POS line, networks of care providers are established and linked to central support, and central program planners receive timely information on new service gaps and access barriers. Conclusion. his novel service has been successful in addressing inequities and access barriers identiied as priorities before service establishment. he service provided unanticipated beneits to health care planning and monitoring of provincial health care related service delivery and gaps. his model for low cost health service delivery may realize similar beneits when applied to other health care systems where access and referral barriers exist. 1. Background he pregnancy options service (POS) is toll-free telephone service in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC), established to improve rural and remote access to counseling and referral for induced abortion services. We review the initial decade of this service to assist those facing access and referral barriers and highlight the value of a low cost model which identiies health care gaps and informs health service planning, while improving access to the full range of reproductive options and counseling, for women throughout a large geographic area. 1.1. Context and History. Induced abortion is a common procedure in Canada currently experienced by a third of Canadian women [1, 2]. Abortion services in BC are nearly exclusively located in urban areas in the extreme south- west. BC, having the area of Germany and France together although only a population of approximately four million, presents signiicant access barriers to abortion service for those in rural and remote areas [3]. Barriers to accessing care disproportionally afect those with lower incomes or in rural and remote areas [4, 5]. In 1997 British Columbia Women’s Hospital and Health Centre (BC Women’s), the tertiary maternity and women’s Hindawi Publishing Corporation Obstetrics and Gynecology International Volume 2014, Article ID 913241, 4 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/913241