Yesterday we told you that the Pharmacy Association of Belize issued a press release which outlined the 12 month phased-in approach that they agreed upon with the Ministry of Health and Wellness.
Basically, if you've gotten a prescription in the past for your medication, over the next year, you don't necessarily need to renew it and can continue getting it.
However, after that time, you will need updated prescriptions. This includes contraceptives as well, so even though this is a phased in approach, you are still unable to get them over the counter.
The PR officer for the association told us more.
Beverly Coleman, PR - Belize Pharmacists Association of Belize
"During this 12 month transition phase, they will be able to obtain their medications without a prescription but the pharmacists is going to emphasize, reemphasize and drive home the fact that the day will come when you will need these medications, you will have to have a doctor's prescription. When it comes to prescription medication, patients and clients have been able to get it because they have been known to be using those medications so they did not require a prescription but for somebody to walk into a pharmacy or talk to a pharmacist and say, check my pressure, this morning my pressure was high, what can you give me? It doesn't work like that."
Courtney Menzies, Reporter
"What do you say to your members when they have to deal with a situation who's on birth control or somebody who desperately needs these medications and they're in front of the pharmacist begging, I really need this, I can't get a prescription, these things are fluid in my life and whatever. What do you say to your members in a situation like that?"
Beverly Coleman, PR - Belize Pharmacists Association of Belize
"As a pharmacist, it doesn't take the enforcement of these laws for us to pick up that role. We are teachers, we are counselors, we are life long learners, we are decision makers, so we have to use our initiative. And in this 12 month period, no pharmacist will be penalized for dispensing or selling any medications for as far as the non communicable diseases and conditions are concerned. Any medications for those will be sold or dispensed with the advice that the time will come that you will need a prescription. A patient comes to us with an issue, we sit down, we listen to that patient and we have to act in the scope of the laws that governs the practice of pharmacy."
