Piloting the morning-after pill. There is a draft regulation

On March 29, President Andrzej Duda vetoed an amendment to the provisions of the Pharmaceutical Law, which restored access to the so-called "day-after pill" without a prescription. The president justified the decision by "respecting constitutional rights and the standard of protection of children's health." The Health Minister announced that in the event of a presidential veto (it was announced while the law was still being worked on in the Sejm and motivated by the age limit for the availability of the drug without a prescription), that she had a Plan B prepared. There are already details, namely a draft regulation on a pilot program for pharmacist-led reproductive health care. It assumes the availability of emergency contraception, or the so-called "morning-after pill," which has ulipristal acetate in its composition, following an interview by a pharmacist. This is intended to enable rapid intervention to minimize the risk of health complications associated with unintended pregnancy.

After the interview, based on the information obtained from it and current medical knowledge, if justified by the patient's health condition involving the risk of an unplanned pregnancy, a pharmaceutical prescription will be issued and the drug will be dispensed.

The pilot program is extended to patients who are at least 15 years of age on the day they report to the pharmacy that will join the program. If there is any doubt about the patient's age, the pharmacist will verify the patient's age based on a photo document. The patient will be able to use the pilot program no more often than every 30 days.

Implementation of the pilot will be financed by the National Health Fund (patients will pay for the drug, while the National Health Fund will pay for the interview and prescription, one rate, regardless of whether the interview ends in a prescription or not, the rate is set at PLN 50). The fund will also be responsible for the implementation, monitoring and subsequent evaluation of the program. Taking this amount into account, as well as data on the scale of implementation of medicinal products that are means of this contraception in recent years, the annual cost of the program was estimated between PLN 12.5 million and PLN 15 million.

The goal of the pilot program, which is expected to last two years, is to improve the state of patient access to modern methods of emergency contraception and to provide pharmacist-in-pharmacy care for patients' reproductive health, with an evaluation of the effectiveness of related measures, particularly for patients between the ages of 15 and 18.