The number of Tasmanians travelling interstate for abortions has increased fivefold since the state’s only dedicated abortion clinic shut in January, Marie Stopes Australia has said.

The chief executive of Marie Stopes, Michelle Thompson, said the number of women from Tasmania who were visiting the Melbourne clinic had increased from about two a month to 10 or 12 a month since the closure of the Hobart clinic, which offered surgical terminations of pregnancies up to 12 weeks.

Medical terminations, using the drug RU486, are still available for suitable patients in Tasmania.

“Women should be able to readily access surgical and medical abortions in their state and as close to their homes as possible,” Thompson said. “When a woman needs to travel interstate for an abortion, it naturally creates more stress and puts more pressure on her.”

She said Tasmania needed to do more to increase access to abortions and could not rely on private providers to step in just because abortion was no longer illegal in the state.

“What needs to happen is major reform when it comes to funding abortion care,” she said. “Tasmania has an important opportunity to solve the access issue by providing public funding to the not-for-profit sector to deliver abortion care services to women locally.”

Tasmania decriminalised abortion in 2013. The Liberal party, then in opposition, was given a conscience vote on the issue but all 11 MPs voted against. One of the biggest opponents was Michael Ferguson, who is now the health minister.

Abortion in Tasmania is decriminalised, but it wasn't an easy battle | Briony Kidd Read more

In January, Ferguson announced an interstate patient transfer scheme as a “temporary measure” to allow women to access surgical pregnancy terminations while the government explored “service options”.

Bill Shorten stepped in during the campaign for the Tasmanian state election in March, offering to fund a $1m reproductive health hub to provide surgical terminations under the public health system. The offer was rejected by the Hodgman government, which won the 3 March election.

It remains a key political issue in the state. There are plans to hold a protest on the parliament house lawns in Hobart on Saturday.

“This is not where we hoped to be when the Reproductive Health Act passed,” Glynis Flower, chief executive of Women’s Health Tasmania, told Guardian Australia. “You may remember the act’s full name included ‘access to terminations’.”

All three clinics that were available when abortion was decriminalised in Tasmania had since closed, Flower said, meaning women were less able to access a termination now than they were before it was decriminalised.

Women’s Health Tasmania, Family Planning Tasmania, The Link Youth Health Services and Pulse Youth Health are able to help women access a medical termination, but that’s an option only up to nine weeks’ gestation. They are also helping women access travel funds.

Labor group lobbies for binding vote in favour of legal and accessible abortions Read more

“Our view is Tasmania needs a sustainable approach which offers choice in both the public and private systems,” Flower said.

Labor’s federal health spokeswoman, Catherine King, said on Friday the situation in Tasmania was “disgraceful” and called on the federal government to intervene. She has also called for an urgent national review on access to sexual and reproductive health services.

“Terminating a pregnancy is difficult enough,” she said. “Forcing a woman to travel interstate to access surgical services can dramatically increase the emotional and financial burden.”

King said Shorten’s offer of funding for a reproductive health clinic if Labor won the next federal election still stood, “but we need a partner who is willing to work with us to make this happen”.

The former Tasmanian health minister Michelle O’Byrne, who championed the decriminalisation of abortion, told Guardian Australia in January she was “devastated” that access to surgical abortions was still not guaranteed in the state.