After 22 phone calls to 22 chemists I have admitted defeat and swallowed the realisation that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) patches are in short supply in Ireland. I had read Sylvia Thompson, in the Irish Times health supplement, saying that some HRT patches will not reappear in pharmacies until May. A friend and I joked about behaving like characters from Breaking Bad and selling HRT patches to sweaty middle-aged women. Now, just as we can’t get hold of HRT patches to stem our sweaty menopausal flushes, we are told that temperature is a useful diagnostic tool for Covid-19. Before the coronavirus crisis, the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said that many women were unable to fill HRT prescriptions and that this was causing those women “distress and inconvenience”.

Source: The Irish Times March 30, 2020 05:26 UTC