Doctors, health experts call on N.S. to cover birth control and HIV-prevention drug – Halifax [Video]

Nova Scotia physicians and other sexual health experts are calling on the provincial government to fund birth control and increase access to a medication used to prevent HIV.

Four doctors, the head of the Halifax Sexual Health Centre, and a pharmacy professor made the comments today at a legislature committee hearing in Halifax.

Abbey Ferguson with the Halifax Sexual Health Centre says PrEP — an antiviral medication that prevents HIV transmission — is so expensive that many people who would benefit from the drug are not able to take it.

The drug is estimated to cost between $200 and $250 per month.

Dr. Melissa Brooks, the medical co-director of the Reproductive Options and Services Clinic, says the province’s pharmacare plan is so restrictive that it often doesn’t help those who cannot afford their preferred birth control option.