Updated | Medicines Authority chief urges Mater Dei to stock emergency contraception for rape victims

Medicines Authority chairman Anthony Serracino Inglott has urged the health authorities to keep a stock of emergency contraception available at Mater Dei for rape victims.

“Rape victims have a right to access emergency contraception at hospital,” he told MaltaToday. “What if victim is raped late at night? Will she have to search across Malta to find an open pharmacy, perhaps go to the airport pharmacy and hope that the person behind the counter isn’t a conscientious objector?”

The Medicines Authority ruled earlier this week that emergency contraceptives containing the active ingredients Levonorgestrel and Ulipristal be made available over the counter, despite proposals by a joint parliamentary committee and the Medical Council of Malta that it should only be made available against a doctor’s prescription. Serracino Inglott said that the MA’s decision was based on the fact the pill’s efficiency hinges greatly on it being consumed as quickly as possible.

The Medicines Authority chairman was speaking at a press conference, convened to clarify comments he had passed during a recent interview on the TV programme Dissett  that were criticised heavily by the Medical Association of Malta (MAM).

MAM earlier today accused Serracino Inglott of claiming that abortions are being carried out in Malta.

“In his interview, the chairman declared that abortions are being carried out in Malta and that these will decrease in number after the introduction of the MAP. Abortion is a criminal offence in Malta and this allegation worries the public and tarnishes the reputation of the whole medical profession,” MAM president Gordon Caruana Dingli said.
Caruana Dingli said that Serracino Inglott’s comments were “unsubstantiated” and “risk tarnishing the reputation of the entire medical profession”, also noting that the Medicines Authority chief did not specify whether abortions in Malta are being carried out surgically or medically. 

However, Serracino Inglott said that the MAM must have misunderstood him and that his comments were made to counter fears by pro-life proponents that emergency contraceptives are abortive.

“What I said was that emergency contraception reduces the rate of abortions. A number of Maltese women travel abroad to have an abortion, something they wouldn’t have to do if emergency contraception was available in Malta,” he said. “Also, it is a fact that some doctors give their patients off-label contraception pills. I do not believe that these pills are abortive either, but the chances of them being so are surely higher than emergency contraceptives, which has been proved as a non-abortifacient by lots of scientific research.

“If one had to apply the definition of “abortion” that certain doctors and citizens have used, then by extension those pills that are already being used in Malta are also abortive.”

Serracino Inglott also expressed disbelief at Caruana Dingli’s suggestion that he and other MA board members could have any conflicts of interest over the morning-after-pill.

“In the interview, the chairman claimed that medicine importers discussed commercially sensitive information with him regarding the number of pharmacies that are willing to sell the morning-after-pill,” Caruana Dingli had said. “He also admitted that he did not discuss the MAP with doctors or pharmacies. We insist that the chairman and board members of the Medicines Authority should make declarations of conflict of interest to maintain the integrity of their posts.”

However, Serracino Inglott vociferously denied having any conflict of interest, stating that he had been referring to a meeting on the MAP that the MA had organised with stakeholders, in which a wholesaler said he was willing to import emergency contraception to Malta.

“Information on how many pharmacies are willing to sell emergency contraception is not commercially sensitive; on the contrary it is of public interest. I want to put people’s minds at rest that emergency contraception will be made available in the majority of Maltese pharmacies.”