Free contraceptives soon from doctors

Press, 9 June 1978, Page 3

Free contraceptives soon from doctors

Parliamentary reporter The Cabinet has approved a Government scheme for free aids to family planning, on a doctor’s prescription, where necessary on social or medical grounds. The Minister of Health (Mr Gill) said yesterday that the scheme would start, as announced earlier this year, on August 1. Final details were being worked out and would be passed on to medical practitioners, pharmacists, wholesalers, and importers very soon. The scheme fulfils an undertaking given in the National Party’s 1975 election manifesto. An amendment to the drug tariff will provide for the free supply, on prescription ar order of a medical practitioner, of con-j traceptives on medical I grounds or because it would! be inappropriate for the) patient to pay. The scheme will also provide for pregnancy tests to be free to the patient. Medical practitioners may either obtain supplies of preg-nancy-testing kits free of charge from a wholesaler or importer, or refer a specimen to a pathology laboratory.

Mr Gill said the scheme was intended to provide for the supply of all types of contraceptive available. But he emphasised that, in all cases, their supply free of charge depended on the patient’s having first consulted a doctor and obtained an appropriate prescription. The convener of the Abortion Rights Committee, (Ms Geraldine Whiteford) yesterday welcomed the Government’s decision. “However,” she said, “free

contraception does not mean f a i 1-safe contraception. Moreover, the undesirable and sometimes dangerous side-effects of the hormonal contraceptive pill are in no way diminished just because the pill will become free.” Mrs Mary Batchelor, the Opposition member for Avon, said: “The timing of Mr Gill’s announcement suggests that it is a last-minute thought on the Minister’s part and something of an election bribe.”