Medical card holders will soon be able to obtain the morning-after pill free of charge from pharmacies without a prescription from their GP.

Emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) has been available to women over the counter in pharmacies since 2011. Prior to this, all women had to attend a doctor and obtain a prescription first.

There is a fee for the drug for non-medical card holders, but until now, if women with a medical card wanted to obtain the drug free of charge from their pharmacy, they still had to attend their GP for a prescription.

This resulted in access issues for some women who could not get a prescription in time, such as at the weekend, and could not afford the drug.

However, the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, has now signed a statutory instrument changing access to EHC for medical card holders.

From July 1, card holders will be able to obtain EHC directly from their pharmacy without a prescription from their GP.

"This is an important public health measure and will remove any barrier to medical card patients getting timely treatment from their local pharmacy. This is about equity of access for all our citizens," Minister Harris commented.

There are currently three EHC products available in Ireland. According to the Department of Health, a situation may arise where a pharmacist is not able to provide EHC or other treatment, or has personal reasons for not wishing to do so.

"The statutory code of conduct for pharmacists requires that, where they are unable to provide a service, they take reasonable action to ensure the patient's care is not jeopardised. In practice, the patient should be referred to another pharmacist, pharmacy or health service," the department said.