Pharmacists are Concerned About Unreported Effects of Medication

While debate over prescription enforcement appears to be easing with a new twelve month phase in period, the Pharmacy Association of Belize says its message hasn’t changed. The focus, they stress, is patient safety, making sure people know exactly what they’re taking and why. As public concern grows over access to contraceptives, pharmacists insist the conversation is being misunderstood, framing the issue not as a restriction on rights, but as a responsibility to protect health.

 

Beverly Coleman, PR Officer, Pharmacy Association of Belize

“I don’t see it as a restriction, but I think what we failed to do was to sensitize our population. What is now the onus I think that is now on us is that we have to show the public and women as where contraceptives are concerned, we are concerned for your health. Contraceptives are made of hormones, and as I said before, we are introducing foreign chemicals to our bodies so we need to know what those are doing. We have been seeing over the years, whether it is because of population growth or any other factor, I don’t think we have done the studies. We do not have the data. We can only guess, but we have been seeing younger and younger people with hypertension, with strokes and we don’t know the reason. So I don’t see it as a restriction or trying to control a woman’s reproductive rights because I am personally, I’m not speaking for the Pharmacist Association of Belize, but personally I am against that. A woman’s body is a woman’s body and it’s hers to decide what she wants to do with it. But we are looking  out for our patients as well.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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