Ryan Park

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, Tash, look, what I'm trying to do at the moment with our healthcare system is just make it more user-friendly, make it more affordable and more accessible.

Women in New South Wales in 2026 are some of the busiest people in our society.

They're often mums, they're often doing education, they're often living professional lives, they're taking kids here, there and everywhere.

What I wanted to try and do was see if we can make a baseline level of healthcare, that is contraceptives pill,

more accessible and affordable and easier for them to be able to do.

And that's what we've been able to do today by announcing that from June, we hope that pharmacists will be able to prescribe the oral contraceptive pill from people over the age of 18.

And if they don't have any complications or there's not any red flags that the pharmacist will work through, then we think that that is an easier way for them to be able to access a really simple part of their healthcare journey.

Yeah, really good question.

These people are highly trained.

So we've got to remember our pharmacists are five-year trained.

On top of that, they're required to do a graduate certificate in additional training that will look at the prescriptions around oral contraceptive and a range of other issues, but we'll be able to bring them up to speed with some of those issues and concerns.

We've also been working with the Chief Health Officer, Dr. Kerry Chant, and we think this strikes the right balance.

I'll also be made very clear to both the patient or the customer and the pharmacist that there will be referral pathways.

So if a person is presenting and they've had a history of clotting, just for argument's sake, then that person will obviously be directed to a GP for a little bit more further analysis and discussion.

These are people who just want to get on the pill.

They've had no real issues around it.

They just want to be able to control their contraceptive way of life and be able to use this in a way that's easier, affordable, and accessible.

And we believe highly trained pharmacists can do that.

No, I don't because our pharmacists have a lot of those conversations as well.