Contraception card to cut embarrassment? (From Bournemouth Echo)

Contraception card to cut embarrassment?

7:00am Thursday 27th December 2007 in

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A HEALTH trust has defended a card scheme that is designed to help schoolgirls overcome the embarrassment of asking for the "morning after" pill from chemists.

Dorset Primary Care Trust is currently trying out the cards in Weymouth and Portland, which have an above average rate of teenage pregnancies.

If they prove a success, they may be distributed to under-18s across the rest of the county.

The idea is that girls can simply place the card on the counter and ask to speak to somebody without having to say why and risk being overheard.

Girls still have to go through the paperwork and speak to the pharmacist

Keith Williams, health programme adviser

Keith Williams, health programme adviser for the trust, said: "As far as I am aware, we're one of the first to try it. It's all come about to promote our emergency contraception scheme.

"We would obviously encourage girls who are having sex to have the necessary protection.

"With the existing emergency contraception scheme they would have to go into a pharmacy and say they'd had unprotected sex.

"In rural areas, there may be people you know working in there. This gets rid of the awkward situation that may put some girls off seeking emergency contraception."

The cards are being distributed by school nurses and youth workers and are available to any sexually active girl.

But Mr Williams stressed: "It's not a case of going to the pharmacy, handing the card over and walking out with emergency contraception.

"Girls still have to go through the paperwork and speak to the pharmacist.

"They work within certain guidelines and take the necessary action."

Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute charity, claimed the cards would "foster a reckless attitude to inappropriate sexual activity".

Bournemouth and Poole Primary Care Trust spokeswoman Nicola Plumb said: "This isn't something we're doing at the moment, but we consider all ways of talking to young people about safe sex."