To think if a pharmacist refuses to dispense medication due to religious or personal beliefs

Not horrendous at all?! What on earth

Yes it was the gp who refused to prescribe in this case, but the outcome remained the same. If you read further I'm in her post, there was a bit more to it than simply not being able to make it on time to the pharmacist ( no car, risk of losing her job for time off), not to mention the fact she had just gone through the trauma of rape... I'm not very comfortable with discussing another posters experience tbh, so I'm not sure what else you're trying to derive from this? Whether it be a gp or pharmacist, it highlights there is a fundamental problem when a woman is forced into this situation .

Not horrendous at all. It was a GP who apparently refused to prescribe the pill for dysmenorrhea. The poster found another doctor who would.

I can see it now. The GP surgery didn't prescribe but the pharmacy did and they advised them of this. The poster just couldn't get to the pharmacy on time before it closed and then couldn't go the next day because of work. So not actually anything to do with pharmacists refusing to to give out the MAP.

The post is on page 11, somewhere towards the bottom. And it was a doctor in this case, not a pharmacist. Horrendous to read.

I can't find the post. Do you have the poster name?

Why would there be a source showing there isn't a problem? People only usually investigate if they think there is. If you want to go on anecdotal evidence, I have worked with 100s of pharmacists over the years and have have only known one that that wouldn't dispense the MAP. The fact that it appears in a newspaper when a pharmacist refuses to dispense also suggests it is quite rare. In no case has anyone claimed that it meant they could get it on time but if that does happen it should be reported to the regulator.

Yes the post is on here. I can't speak for the poster. But these types of scenarios are not uncommon I suspect.

And I am sceptical that this is only a " double digits" issue as well, given the size of the UK and the geographical spread of its population. Do you have a source to suggest otherwise? Obviously, no one can state with any certainty how big the size of the problem is, we can only go by experience and anecdotal evidence.

Is the post on this thread. Did she inform the pharmaceutical regulator as there certainly should be an investigation.

I am very sceptical that 1000s of women are suffering unnecessarily because of this given most pharmacists will dispense but if you have any facts demonstrating that they are perhaps link?

Interesting response thank you. Rather than spend your time counting the number of posts, why don't you try reading a few? Perhaps start with the poor woman who was raped and had to have a termination due to not being able to get the map? That was a particularly harrowing one.

I said probably. This thread currently has fewer than 300 posts and only a handful are from people who have experienced this. The vast majority of women have never needed the MAP and the number of pharmacists who won’t dispense it is miniscule. As I said, you’re vastly exaggerating the scale of the problem.

Double figures?! How would you know this? If we count alone the posters on here who have encountered problems with accessing the map, even those would be more than double figures.

I think you’re exaggerating overestimating the numbers involved here. The number of women affected annually is probably in double figures.

That may be so, but it doesn't take away the fact that thousands of women are suffering unnecessarily due to the legitimisation of a restrictive practice. Nothing is static though, so hopefully it will be reviewed and amended given time, especially if women collectively put enough pressure on the relevant bodies to expedite such change. At its core, it's disproportionately disadvantaged a huge percentage of the adult population in accessing a healthcare need.

It was discussed and looked into very carefully when the morning after pill was first available. There is no way they could introduce a rule stating that hcp have to dispense or prescribe the MAP without it having an impact on the profession and ultimately patients.

@SabreIsMyFave This is incorrect. Pharmacists are the experts on medication and will often pick up GP prescribing mistakes. This is why we have pharmacists and not just a robot who selects the prescribed box of medication.

I absolutely agree with you and wish you hadn't had this experience. It's far too easy for people to quote gibberish from the pharmacists guidelines or to insist that it's easy to find another pharmacy that will prescribe. People are complex beings with a vast array of complicated personal circumstances, which can't all be taken into account when deciding that it's ok for pharmacists to simply refer to another chemist. I think the mere fact that this is deemed as an acceptable practice, highlights the real need for this to be looked into more carefully. It's already traumatic enough having to ask for help in the first place, without putting another barrier in the way!

I wouldn't go as far as saying that holding these beliefs should prevent people from working in the profession, but GPs/Pharmacies should be very clear about what services they are able to provide and ideally have a colleague available who can prescribe MAP if they are uncomfortable with doing so.

I do think a lot of posters are naive when they say just traveling a few extra miles to the next pharmacy is no big deal. I'm someone who fell pregnant and was forced to have an abortion, because I called my local Doctors surgery the morning after being raped, asked for an appointment to get MAP which I wasn't told could be an issue by the receptionist. However I was refused it as there was no Dr in the surgery who was willing to prescribe it due to their beliefs. It took a lot of courage to call in the first place. I was then told I could go to a pharmacy 5 miles away and get it if I could get there in the next 5 minutes before it closed. I didn't drive at the time so it wasn't physically possible.

During this time I worked for a call centre and was due back at work the next day for 3 days straight. I spent hours researching all pharmacies in a radius I could reach and still get to work it time, but there was nothing. Work had literally just given me a grilling for not being at work the previous month because I couldn't get out of bed for several days with the flu. I was told I could lose my job if I had further absences in the next few months and there was no option for flexi time to just duck out for a doctors appointment without being interrogated as to the reasons why.

Yes and I thought you were going to say morphine lol 😝

You believe that (as do I). But you can't tell me I'm disrespecting someone's morals I disagree with (morals which cause women harm), and then disrespect someone else's 'morals' because you disagree with them and they're not longer moral.

There's no right anywhere to have your 'morals' respected. You can hold them (as some clearly do), and I can think they're phony, abhorrent, stupid and awful - and say so.

Speaking as someone who has spent a large proportion of their working life in a fairly isolated area I would not be in favour of placing any further restrictions on which HCPs can work in remote and rural areas. Recruitment and retention in health care is a problem everywhere of course but it is a massive issue in many areas outside big towns and cities. Unfortunately the type of area where there is only one GP surgery or pharmacy is also likely to be the type of area where recruitment of HCPs is the most difficult and ruling out anyone from the already insufficient pool of people who are willing to take those posts could well make it even harder to fill posts. So it might end up not only being emergency contraception that that population has to travel miles for. In most circumstances it is far easier for an HCP to find another job than it is for them to be replaced, and restricting applications or insisting applicants go against their religious/ethical beliefs won't help that.
Ideally of course everyone should have equal access to all healthcare but for all kinds of reasons that isn't possible and probably never will be. Placing additional requirements on applicants in an attempt to solve this one problem could well have unintended consequences elsewhere. Whilst I would think that more or less everyone would like their HCP to provide all the services they're likely to need, most would prefer an otherwise good and committed permanent GP or pharmacist who doesn't provide emergency contraception to an ever changing string of unknown locums or worse, nobody at all. And that is the unfortunate reality for communities where permanent staff can't be recruited.
I do think that it should be very clear what is not provided though, and detailed information on how and where to access alternatives clearly displayed. It isn't in anyone's interest for a woman to have to make an appointment or queue and ask in a busy shop only to be turned away.

My council had such issues with this years and years ago, they now have a self referral number. You just call up, say you’re pregnant and seeking an abortion and they’ll book you in with a clinic/hospital depending on where you are. You can bypass the GP entirely now and self refer. I assume this is something being rolled out in other council areas too. I hope so!

Puberty blockers may or may not be safe, and with all the studies coming out at the moment, I wouldn’t dispense those either. It is in their job to give advice about medicines if they may not actually be safe to take.

The MAP is safe. And no one could ever say that it wasn’t in a woman’s best interests to use a contraception. I can’t imagine a pharmacist ever saying that about condoms.