A formal scheme for family doctors to give sex education to adolescent patients has been proposed by the Irish College of General Practitioners. The proposal is contained in a document which is the ICGP's response to the Women & Crisis Pregnancy Report published last year. It could be concluded from that report, according to Dr Ailis Ni Riain, author of the ICGP document, that young people decide themselves at what age they want to be sexually active.
"We have to approach this at a number of different levels. The Dutch experience, where there is a very well organised and structured sex education programme at all levels would suggest that well informed and confident young people make better decisions for themselves. Their age at first intercourse is probably the highest in Europe. They also have the lowest incidence of abortion in the early teens and 20s."
Dr Ni Riain, who presented the document at the ICGP's annual conference yesterday, said the proposals were preliminary at present but the scheme could be organised along lines similar to the childhood immunisation scheme which would be funded by the Department of Health. "All adolescents would have a consultation with their GP involving a range of health issues - nutrition, smoking, drugs, physical exercise, responsible sexual behaviour." Adolescents should be able to consult a GP of their choice to discuss these "broad health issues". She said it was not possible for a GP to discuss these issues in depth at one session but the doctor could give a broad outline, including information telling the patients that there was access to information and contraceptive services if it was needed. Meanwhile, the west midland faculty of the ICGP is to propose a motion tomorrow seeking "legislative clarification" regarding the provision of contraception to girls under the age of 16.
Dr Patrick O'Meara, Athlone, said that doctors were regularly getting requests from "young adults" for information on contraceptives and prescriptions. He said that doctors "reasonably frequently" were being asked for this information from 14- and 15-year-olds. "There are a number of stakeholders in this - parents, society - which faces the problem of teenage pregnancy - and doctors trying to deal with these young adults. The ideal situation would be if parents came in with their child, which is happening more frequently. However, there are other groups coming in without their parents or going to a doctor other than their family GP." Doctors, he said, were technically not supposed to prescribe "even an antibiotic" to a person under the age of 16 without parental consent.
In its recommendations, the ICGP document said the importance of sex education "in its broadest sense" and the need for easily accessible family planning services and pregnancy counselling were recognised.
It said a national sex education programme, incorporated within a health education strategy, was required. In an effort to reduce crisis pregnancies it was necessary to introduce measures to increase knowledge and awareness of access to contraception "to bring about more effective use".
GPs needed to reassure young people about confidentiality when they requested contraceptive advice. It also called for the demand for emergency contraception over holiday periods and weekends to be addressed, as well as sexually active men being encouraged to carry condoms. It called, too, for sterilisation to be made available at all hospitals and for medical card holders.