A Brief History of Lu's: A Pharmacy for Women

In 2006, the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective Steering Committee officially agreed to move ahead with the idea of a social enterprise pharmacy for women. Executive Director Caryn Duncan laid the groundwork by exploring avenues available to non-profit organizations for pursuing the social enterprise route, and with some early help from Vancouver’s Building Opportunities with Business, the VWHC started recruiting professional women in Vancouver who could act as an Advisory Committee throughout the process of business planning and development.

At the same time, the VWHC began internal visioning for the project. Our brainstorming sessions confirmed the organizational interest and support for a community pharmacy for women that would provide safe, comprehensive, and respectful services and health care support for women in the downtown eastside. The idea meshed well with the more than 35 years of advocacy work that the VWHC has undertaken for women’s health, and would be developed with our slogan, “women helping women help themselves” always in mind.

The VWHC is in some ways returning to the type of work it was known for in its earliest days. In the 1970s the women of the VWHC operated a women’s self-help clinic, training themselves and providing services to women including cervical self-exams, diaphragm and cervical cap fitting, abortion counselling, pregnancy testing, breast self-exams, and STI testing. In addition, these women also ran a women’s information centre and phone line, managed and shared a practitioner directory, and researched and gave public speaks and workshops in schools and community centres. The advocacy work of the VWHC during this time included speaking out against restrictions on access to abortion and birth control, the pharmaceutical industry’s motives and the effects of dangerous products offered to women including DES (Diethylstilbestrol) and the Dalkon Shield, the labour issues faced by women health care workers, and the medicalization of women’s bodies by the health care system.

By opening a women’s pharmacy, the VWHC is once again providing health care services to women along with health information and our continued advocacy work, from a model that is informed by a feminist perspective. We know that women are still underserved by the current health care model, and we know that certain women face considerable barriers to accessing quality health care, which include poverty, addiction, racism, and sexism, among others. We see Lu’s: A Pharmacy for Women as a unique opportunity to organize in a new way, by bringing together health care professionals both traditional and holistic (in the form of pharmacists, doctors, and holistic practitioners), volunteers, community activists, and community members in one space.

The process of launching Lu’s: A Pharmacy for Women has been long, difficult and rewarding.