Access to contraception, we have all the – or? The answer is: no.
Although various means can be bought in pharmacies or over the Internet, you are not, in reality, long been available to all. The simple reason for this: in this Country, contraceptives cost money. The sums range from a few Euro per month for cheap pill supplements of up to 400 euros for a spiral that lasts several years.
“I have already asked many of the women, to their spiral in Rates bother welshing,” says Dorothee Struck, gynaecologist from Kiel. “A few euros at the end of the month, an important difference.” For Low-income earners, students and Hartz IV recipients, the costs pose a sometimes insurmountable hurdle.
And that has consequences: the low-paid end of interrupt to the prevention of frequent, unplanned pregnancies and abortions are the result. The results of the study, has summarized the Federal centre for health education (BzgA) show. “Coitus interruptus is free of charge – but is also very uncertain,” says Struck. In her practice, she also manages women who have several abortions behind. “A financially weak patient, who was 23 to her second child, wept with gratitude as I filled her then, still on the Obstetrics ward at the cost of acquisition for a spiral,” says Struck.
Until 2004, the cost of medically prescribed agents were taken over by the social services. “In the meantime, can’t take any more,” says Struck, “access to contraception has become worse.”
Refunds a maximum of up to 21 years
Today, the statutory health insurance funds, women to be reimbursed under 22 years of prescription contraceptives. These include hormonal methods such as the Anti-Baby-pill, the contraceptive ring, or the implant include. Contraceptives are not medicines and therefore, there is no recipe, you will need to be paid by you. These include condoms, diaphragms, and tools for the symptothermal method Basal thermometer or cycle computer.
“I knew a patient who had an increased risk of stroke and non-hormonal, could prevent,” says Struck. “So you should get a copper spiral. But no doctor in their area agreed.”
The Greens and the Left have tried to change that. They were in the summer of 2018, two Bundestag applications. The Greens wanted free contraceptives for low-income people, The Left demanded free access for all, and to all of the methods. In February, they were rejected by the Bundestag with a large majority.
Example Countries: Belgium, Britain, France
In the EU for the prevention of Atlas, 2018, Belgium, France and the UK are the frontrunners. In the first two, there are refunds for young people and Low-income earners, in the UK, 15 contraceptives for the population as a whole are free of charge. “In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) offers affordable generics,” says Struck. “In the case of the free-of-spirals, there are not many sizes to choose from, but a clear, uniform set of rules. Germany is well positioned, however, very bad.”
All the same, There are individual approaches to free or reduced cost contraception. Some municipalities provide the cost of prescribed contraceptives to a takeover by a physician, unless you request and low income proof. In Berlin, this also applies to condoms. In addition, the model project – biko-advice, Information and costs is currently running in seven German cities. The profamilia project, women can get with little money to prescription contraceptives free of charge.
Alexandra Have, Biko-head of the project, is very satisfied with the course: “At all seven locations, there is a high demand and positive response. We have done a lot of public Relations work and provided us with local Physicians and pharmacists connected, have settled the contraception costs directly with profamilia.” Biko is still running until the end of June, in September 2019, with concrete Figures and results should be available.
Information and partnership
One thing, however: men in the discussion on the prevention of little. Is it (again) so, of course, that women contraceptive can prescribe, to take and pay for, even though men are equally involved in Sex, and the risks such as unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases?
When I have patients today, question of whether your Partner is involved in the cost of harvest I confused looks,” says Struck. Because you feel like a dinosaur from the feminist eighties, where it has been for many, of course, was that the men paid for each of the second Tube from the diaphragm, Gel and condoms. “In the meantime, young patients tell me that their parents bear the cost,” says Struck. “Then what of women who do not have well to do parents in the back?”
Alexandra Have hopes, however, that the biko project is continued: “A nationwide offer would be a necessary, long-overdue development, but ultimately the policy has to decide.”
In the recent Bundestag debate on the prevention of the SPD is in favour of the results of the model project to be seen.