Women will be able to access abortion services in the island in May, the Health Minister has confirmed.

Minister for Health and Social Care confirmed the May sitting of Tynwald will be asked to approve the regulations and directions, which if granted will come into law on Friday, May 24.

Mr Ashford was responding to a question from Dr Alex Allinson MHK (Ramsey) who guided his private member’s bill through the House of Keys last year to ensure women in the island have equality with those in the UK.

Dr Allinson had asked the Minister: ’When an appointed day order to commence the Abortion Reform Act 2019 will be laid before Tynwald?’

It will be laid before next month’s Tynwald sitting with the regulations and directions brought for final approval in May.

Mr Ashford explained that the regulations the department is required to make including ’requiring relevant professionals to record the reasons for the termination, its circumstances and to give notice of an information relating to that termination’.

Other regulations would include a ’relevant professional’ recording the reasons for supplying abortion ’products’ and that a women is not being coerced into having an abortion.

In a supplementary question, Dr Allinson sought assurances that the entire act would come into force on one day including access zone regulations.

Mr Ashford confirmed ’to the best of my understanding’ that the act would take effect in its entirety.

When asked to provide assurances that the island’s healthcare service would be ready and resilient enough for the change, Mr Ashford said: ’We get one shot at this.

’It is absolutely important that the services can cope and can provide for the women of our island, quite rightly, are not just expecting and demanding, but also receiving.’

In a previous answer to a question from Julie Edge MHK (Onchan) Mr Ashford confirmed that some women may still have to travel to the UK for ’complex’ cases.

He said: ’Initially, there may be a couple of cases that would have to travel off-island, but we expect only those to be the most complicated cases.

’We’re not going to be able to provide all services if there’s extreme complications for whatever reason, and that happens now with women when they have to go in certain circumstances, that isn’t going to change.’