Morning-after pills trial in second year

Waikato pharmacies have been handing out the morning-after pill for the past year in a word-of-mouth trial.

The morning-after pill has been free to Waikato women for the past year and the pharmacy trial was so successful it has been extended for another year.

This week, Auckland District Health Board decided to support a scheme allowing pharmacists to provide the emergency contraceptive pill to young women free, but it's not a New Zealand first.

In the Waikato, a pilot project allowing 3000 pharmacy consultations to supply the pill free to women under 25, was funded by Waikato District Health Board from April last year. The budget for the scheme was $90,000.

Waikato Community Pharmacy Group chief executive Cath Knapton said the scheme was not advertised but, through word-of-mouth, the number of morning-after pills being given out by Waikato pharmacists had increased dramatically in the past 12 months.

Fifty-seven pharmacies in the region signed up for the scheme which gives young women access to the pill, which can cost between $28 and $35.

Ms Knapton said prior to the trial pharmacists had grown increasingly concerned about women who had come in to get the pill but left without it when they found out the price.

"We knew there was a gap in the service," she said. "We had pharmacists saying girls would come in and do the whole consult and then walk out when they were told the cost. Then the pharmacists would ask, `where are they going, what's happening to these girls?'."

The pill was already free at Family Planning and sexual health clinics, GPs, and school clinics, prior to the trial.

But because the Waikato covers a large rural area, young women in outlying towns may have had access to only a pharmacist.

In April 2007, 35 of the pills were given out compared to March this year, when 258 were given out. In the year to February 2008, 1774 morning-after pill consultations had been carried out. Almost three-quarters of that figure are for women of European background, fewer than 25 per cent are Maori, with Indian, Asian and other Pacific races making up the rest.

"It just shows that word-of-mouth actually works," Ms Knapton said.

The project was designed to enhance existing youth sexual health services as well as reduce barriers to the pill for women in the region.

Another objective was to help reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions in under 25-year-olds.

Ms Knapton said the pharmacies within CentrePlace and Westfield Chartwell Square malls had given out the most pills.

The Waikato Community Pharmacy Group has entered the project in the Innovation and Pharmacy Awards competition, which will be judged in June.

- © Fairfax NZ News