BMJ 1995;310:1193-1194 (6 May)

Letters

Clinics may miss those in greatest need

EDITOR,--We agree with the main thrust of Yvonne Stedman and Max Elstein's editorial advocating more cohesive provision of sexual health services.1 But have the authors taken too narrow a view of where and when patients present? There is no mention of the work of accident and emergency departments in this field.

Males who present to accident and emergency departments with problems of a sexual nature can usually be managed with either reassurance or referral for investigation in the relevant clinic, often at the triage stage. Women present a more difficult problem in two areas.

Firstly, our department receives a considerable number of requests for postcoital contraception. Other local departments do not provide this service; provision by family planning clinics and general practitioners is patchy and usually limited to working hours. During January this year 45 women were registered in our department for postcoital contraception. Levonorgestrel-ethinyloestradiol was prescribed to 43 of . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Rethinking sexual health clinics
Yvonne Stedman and Max Elstein
BMJ 1995 310: 342-343. [Extract] [Full Text]

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