From Mrs R. Baker, MRPharmS
SIR,—Sit back. Relax. Comfortable? Then let your mind dwell on the four community pharmacies nearest to where you are sitting, or to your home, or to your favourite pub. Any four will do.
Ask yourself how many of these four pharmacies are suitable places for a woman to be interviewed, in depth, about her most recent sexual encounter, her regular method of contraception and her general health.
The most recent survey of pharmacists found, we are told, that 77 per cent of pharmacists would be happy to supply emergency oral contraception over the counter, but has your survey of your four pharmacies found at least three of them suitable for such a supply? I doubt it. In most pharmacies it takes a great deal of skill to counsel a woman on the interaction between the pill and certain antibiotics without causing embarrassment.
To the powers-that-be at Lambeth, who are determined to force the supply of emergency oral contraception on to community pharmacists and to the alleged 77 per cent of pharmacists who would welcome this development I would like to say: "It's time to get real."
Rosemary Baker
Hoylake, Wirral