Link

(Hope I did the url thingy right.)

From the article:

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The pharmacists' association immediately posted guidelines on its website. They include giving women a screening form to fill out that asks for personal identification, the time when they last had unprotected sex, the number of times they have had unprotected sex since their last menstrual period, and what form of birth control they use. The information should be stored in the pharmacy's computer, the guidelines state.

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Pharmacists are also charging a "counselling fee" of about $20 on top of $20 for the pill, putting it out of reach for many women, she said. The fee is government-paid only in Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

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I'm of two minds about this. I realize that pharmacists are healthcare professionals, and as such are required to maintain a certain amount of information about a client in order to do their job properly and dispense medications that will not harm the client but the prescription requirements for this medication were removed for a reason. But I ask for Tylenol with codeine (also a behind-the-counter drug) I don't have to receive counselling and provide the pharmacist with medical information.

I think that the pharmacist's concern over my sex life could be alleviated if they were to give out a handout to the client purchasing the morning-after-pill that gave safe-sex information.

The fact that they have been asked by their association to ask the above questions makes me wonder what they will do if the client's answers indicate to the pharmacist that the client is, in the pharmacist's eyes, irresponsible sexually. Will the pharmacist refuse to dispense the medication? Will you be forced to have counselling from the part-time pharmacist at Shopper's Drug Mart, someone with whom you do not really have a healthcare provider/client relationship with?

Those are the questions that worry me about such things.

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Will you be forced to have counselling from the part-time pharmacist at Shopper's Drug Mart, someone with whom you do not really have a healthcare provider/client relationship with?

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This would be ridiculous. Pharmacists are not trained to be counsellors. They are only qualified to counsel about the drugs they prescribe, potential interactions, etc. They aren't doctors and they aren't psychologists.

For goodness sake, when was the last time they made a man fill in a form with such personal questions when they purchase condoms -

edited: typo

[ 02 December 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]

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the potential damage this could do in a small town would be quite bad as well

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Originally posted by kurichina:
Snall town pharmacies don't really have private areas to talk in either generally.

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Originally posted by kurichina:
Pharmacists are not trained to be counsellors.

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This is totally outrageous and it is clear that it will mostly humiliate those who are most vulnerable.

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
I expect a woman wanting this pill would drive a few miles to a store where the person in line behind her would be a stranger.

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If she has a car. A good number of teenagers do not.

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
For example, if they spot the fact that you are already on a medication which could interact with your new one, they should warn you, ...

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:

Actually I thought they were. For example, if they spot the fact that you are already on a medication which could interact with your new one, they should warn you, and if there are instructions on the bottle about when not to take the medication, they should give them orally too for the benefit of those who don't read English well.

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But that's not quite the same as the pharmacist asking rather personal and, IMHO unnecessary questions about sexual history. If a pharmacist sees that a client's medications could interact and cause illness or further health issues, of course they need to speak up.

I went through this two years ago when I had to go to a pharmacy for ECP. She asked me all kinds of questions that went beyond the ones outlined above - not only when I last had sex but where it took place, which sexual positions we engaged in, how the condom broke, what kind of condoms, etc, in the middle of a crowded Shopper's. It was the most humilating, frustrating experience of my life.

edit: cross posting with kurichina!

[ 02 December 2005: Message edited by: Nikita ]

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Originally posted by smartone:
This is very disturbing. Why do Pharmacists believe most women cannot read?? The instructions should be enclosed.

For goodness sake, when was the last time they made a man fill in a form with such personal questions when they purchase condoms -

Women are not capable of taking a pill but every male knows how to put on a condom?? Geez!

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As anyone in the health care industry can tell you, people just don't read the package insert that comes with their medications. My experience with Scarleteen backs this up. Kids buy ECP and then don't read the instructions on use.

As a hormone, absorbed by the body, the ECP can have dangerous and possibly lethal side effects in some women. I am thinking here of women who cannot take regular oral contraception because of health problems (hypertension, smoking, etc.). The only real side effect with condoms is latex allergy that some men and women have. And, yes, people who buy condoms don't read the package insert either.

[ 02 December 2005: Message edited by: Bobolink ]

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Originally posted by kurichina:
I understand (and stated in my post) that they can give information about "the drugs they prescribe, potential interactions, etc."

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As anyone in the health care industry can tell you, people just don't read the package insert that comes with their medications. My experience with Scarleteen backs this up. Kids buy ECP and then don't read the instructions on use.

As a hormone, absorbed by the body, the ECP can have dangerous and possibly lethal side effects in some women. I am thinking here of women who cannot take regular oral contraception because of health problems (hypertension, smoking, etc.). The only real side effect with condoms is latex allergy that some men and women have. And, yes, people who buy condoms don't read the package insert either.

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Again, there is a difference between informing someone about the health risks attached to a medication and the interrogation associated with emergency contraception.

I sound like such a grump! But I resent the fact that there is this large section of health care professionals who want to objectify women in this way.

[ 02 December 2005: Message edited by: Nikita ]

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:

Oops. Sorry.

I just sympathize with those pharmacists who, when doctors say they don't want a pharmacist educating their patients and possibly telling them something the doctor didn't, respond "I didn't get a pharmacy degree in order to be a dispensing machine."

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As anyone in the health care industry can tell you, people just don't read the package insert that comes with their medications. My experience with Scarleteen backs this up.

As a hormone, absorbed by the body, the ECP can have dangerous and possibly lethal side effects in some women. I am thinking here of women who cannot take regular oral contraception because of health problems (hypertension, smoking, etc.). The only real side effect with condoms is latex allergy that some men and women have. And, yes, people who buy condoms don't read the package insert either

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True, but it's the consumer's responsibility to read the info and decide for herself. Allowing the consumer some autonomy/control over her reproduction is one of the reasons the medication was made easier to obtainin the first place. It is the pharmacist's responsibility to provide the info, full stop. Aspirin can have deadly side-effects too and is contraindicated with certain medication. Cold medications are contraindicated for use with some anti-depressants (MAOIs?) but the pharmacist doesn't quiz me on my use of antidepressants when I buy a cold medication.

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As a hormone, absorbed by the body, the ECP can have dangerous and possibly lethal side effects in some women. I am thinking here of women who cannot take regular oral contraception because of health problems (hypertension, smoking, etc.).

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But isn't the risk of hypertension and smoking while taking oral contraceptives a risk of long-term use? And those risk factors do not preclude the prescribing of the oral contraceptive and don't require knowledge of the client's sexual history.

Infantilizing, again. Invading privacy, again. Attempting to control, again. Humiliating, again.

OK, grils and womyn of babble, wot we gonna do?

Me, I'm going to write to the three groups mentioned in the Star article and I just looked up their addresses for that purpose and to pass them along here.

Canadian Pharmacists Association
1785 Alta Vista Dr.
Ottawa K1G 3T6
Janet Cooper [email protected]
[email protected]

Women and Health Protection
P.O. Box 291, Sta. Q
Toronto M4T 2M1
web page
[email protected]

Canadian Women's Health Network
Ste. 203, 419 Graham Ave.
Winnipeg R3C 0M3
web page
[email protected]

If someone can explain precisely how that information is going to be used, then I might think differently.

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As for the personal visit to the local pharmacy, you might make quite the impression right at the moment, being seen to defend women's rights to b.c.

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Ontario pharmacists will be asked to stop collecting sensitive information about a woman's sexual activity before they dispense the so-called morning after pill.

The Ontario College of Pharmacists agreed yesterday to advise pharmacists not to use a controversial screening form to collect the information after privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian complained following a report in the Toronto Star last week.

... Jane Pepino, chair of the Ontario Women's Health Council, called it "a good first step but Plan B must end up in front of the counter. We wanted women to have access to it without the kind of demeaning and intrusive questions such as the ones that had been asked. Thankfully, pharmacists have acceded to the request."

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But there's still the rest of the country ...

Article in the Toronto Star.

[edited to remove sidescroll, oops][edited again because I still can't get the url to work, but the article's on the star website anyway (www.thestar.com)]

[ 08 December 2005: Message edited by: Tehanu ]

There is absolutely NO reason for women to have to fill out forms, or even to answer questions. That's absolutely ridiculous. No one has to fill out forms to get other behind-the-counter drugs that could potentially be disruptive to your body (as morning-after pills admittedly are).

There's such an easy way around this. If they want to make sure that women know what they're taking, then when a woman asks for the ECP, they can give it to them, with GENERAL instructions and warnings about it, and let the woman herself decide whether she falls into the category of people who can take it. So, they can tell her, just like with any other product, what the time frame is when it will be effective (and when it WON'T be effective), what to expect as side effects, and what type of sex can cause pregnancy (e.g. intercourse).

And then leave it to the woman to decide whether she fits the criteria. I mean, honestly, the solution is so easy that I can't help but think that this whole thing is more political than anything else.

[ 08 December 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

[ 08 December 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I hastened to point out that it was a Birth Control Pill, not a narcotic, and requested that she phone my home pharmacy, which was open 24 hrs a day. She refused. I had to go home, call my home pharmacy, and have them call the equivalent of Shoppers in Montreal to avoid further embarrassment/rage/wasting of my time.

I'm disappointed that so many other young women and girls have become complacent about reproductive rights. I've seen so many friends shrug off the issue-- they feel that the legal rights are already there, thus being too vocal about this "distasteful" issue brands them as "feminazis". Until they have a bad personal experience in actually exercising these legal rights, that is.

Disappointingly, it took recent a Law and Order:SVU episode to get the attention of one friend who always believed that pharmacists should be able to refuse parts of their job (ie, dispensing ECP) on moral/religious grounds.

(Background: The character on the show couldn't get ECP because the pharmacist refused on moral grounds. This set in motion a chain of events that saw her unable to get an in-state abortion without parental permission, going out-of-state only to be suckered by a fake abortion clinic that tricked women into waiting until it was no longer legally permitted, and then finally doing violence to her own body for lack of other options.)

"Notice to Pharmacists

Re: Emergency Contraception Screening Form

Further to discussions with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, we are advising you not to use the 'Screening Form for Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECPs)' produced by the Canadian Pharmacists Association...."

It goes on to say that we are still expected to provide appropriate information and counseling.

I disagree that "things are getting worse." Before ECPs were made non-prescription, women would come into the Shoppers where I used to work evening shifts, asking for the "morning after" pill. I'd have to send them next door, where there was a medical walk-in clinic. The woman would have to wait, sometimes for hours, to spend a couple of minutes with a doctor who would write the order on a prescription pad and then get to bill OHIP for the privilege.

I think the screening form was a consequence of clamouring from a tiny, but highly vocal, minority of pharmacists who believe that ECPs may be "abortifacient." Also, there were some doctors who were against pharmacists handing out ECPs. So I think the Canadian Pharmacists Association was trying to compromise. (I don't belong to this organization, so I'm guessing.)

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Originally posted by Sineed:

I disagree that "things are getting worse."

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I should have been clearer-- I think things are getting worse in terms of the general state of reproductive rights for North American women. Not necessarily that ECP was harder to access-- in some limited ways, things are indeed getting better, at least for women in Canada.

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But I do think that a combination of complacency and what's happening in the U.S. will not see us continuing to progress. I see great potential for erosion of reproductive rights within the current political/cultural climate. Unless we become more proactive in defending these rights, they may well slip away.

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"Pharmacists should continue to seek information from the patient only as necessary to clarify the appropriateness of providing Plan B, keeping in mind the need to respect the individual’s right to remain anonymous and to decline responding to personally sensitive questions."