St Lucia enforces law requiring prescription for birth control Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

Birth control pills can help you avoid pregnancy, but they can also have other benefits.

While birth control is the most common reason people use the pill, more than half of users rely on it to regulate their periods, relieve endometriosis symptoms, prevent ovarian cysts, and help with PCOS, cramps, PMS, and anaemia.

Birth control contraceptive pills have been very easy to obtain in St Lucia in recent years. Although the Pharmacy Act of 2007 states that contraceptive pills are a prescription-only drug, until recently, purchasers were often not required to present their prescriptions.

The Pharmacy Council observed that many pharmacies throughout the island were selling contraceptives without a prescription, which is against the law, and has recently enforced this law.

“That law has always been there, we are just enforcing it. If you check the Pharmacy Act of 2007, the requirement is you need a prescription to purchase contraceptives. There are a lot of things that we need to enforce. We see it happening too often and people are just walking into a pharmacy and buying contraceptives without a prescription. The pharmacies are dispensing contraceptives without prescriptions so we are enforcing the laws and pharmacies need to abide by the laws,” the Pharmacy Council said.

While contraception requires a prescription, morning-after pills (emergency contraceptives) can be purchased without one. According to the Council, morning-after pills are a pharmacy-assisted drug that does not require a doctor’s visit.

“The emergency contraceptive pill is a pharmacy-assisted drug, which means it can only be purchased from a pharmacy authorised by a pharmacist, and the consumer has to be counseled by the pharmacist. You don’t need a doctor’s prescription to get the emergency contraceptive pill.”

“There are different forms of contraception, there are different formulations, there are different ingredients in contraceptives, and that is the reason why you need a prescription. You have to be examined by a physician and the physician will be in a better position to determine which form of contraceptive is better for the patient.”

The Pharmacy Act of 2007 states:

A pharmacist shall at all times have regard to the laws and regulations applicable to pharmaceutical practice and maintain a high standard of professional conduct.

A person who contravenes a provision of this Act for which no penalty is specified commits an offence and is liable upon conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both.

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