Nothing to do now but blog.

It’s been a very strange couple of days over in Strong Badia. On Monday I resolved one issue (Drs. Feet and associates) and revived another (Mr. Go Pregnancy Go!)*.

Mr. Go Pregnancy Go! Refers to the pharmacist who won’t dispense Plan B the right way, and about whom I wrote to the Ontario College of Pharmacists. As it turns out, a professional college takes complaints very seriously and none go unanswered. Including mine. The complaints officer discussed the situation with me, asked me what I’d like to see done, and whether I wanted to go forward with a formal complaint against the guy. I told her what I’ve written on here before: I have no crusade, but I wanted an explanation from this guy.

Word-for-word, his explanation was this:

“It is against my religious beliefs because I am a Buddhist and don’t feel comfortable administering a drug for the termination of pregnancy.”

Calmly I told him that that the decision as to how a drug is dispensed in this province, for moral reasons or otherwise, does not rest with him and is not a matter of individual store policy, to which he replied, “the pharmacist does have the right to choose”**.

To reiterate: he claimed the drug is for “termination of pregnancy.” And that’s not what Plan B does***.

The fact that he’s disregarding the product knowledge and education required of a pharmacist and combining it with a moral decision to limit access to the drug is of great concern to me beyond the fact that I had to wait to obtain it. ‘Cause there are probably lots of other women he told this to as well.

In the morning I saw the thing that makes me sadder than anything else: a dead cat in the road. Black and white. It had just been hit dead and, mercifully, there was no blood. It was a big relief that I’d kept Spike in before I left the house.

And then, not two blocks away, there was a three-car accident right before my eyes. It stopped all southbound traffic.

And I thought, “this will just be one of those days.”

Whoever has that cat probably still thinks it’s coming home.

Notes:
* Drs. Feet and associates: The whole hoopla with the $750 in bad orthotics went very well. The guy’s replacing them free of charge. Just one of those things that worked out.

** the pharmacist does have the right to choose: And yet he claims no such right for his clientele. He also told me that he was not alone in his decision and that other DRUGStore locations were doing the same thing. In fact, I replied, I called every other location in Ontario and found that he was the only one who was doing it. Imagine that!

*** that’s not what Plan B does: The product information and website explains that the drug works by preventing a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall. Without this step, a pregnancy cannot “begin.” If the egg has already attached, then Plan B is of no use; it can’t terminate a pregnancy. The time it takes for this to occur is the 72-hour window in which a woman can take the drug and hope for effectiveness. This time frame is critical and the reason that Plan B was made available without prescription by Health Canada.