Editorial: Closed pharmacies came with no spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down
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When you need your medicine, you need your medicine.
A doctor prescribes what is needed and the timetable to take it. Every morning, every four hours, whatever the doctor says goes.
People can be hamstrung by availability. We are used to the restrictions of money when a certain prescription costs too much. We know what it is like to be denied because insurance won’t cover a medication.
But now there are the added hurdles of accessibility.
On Wednesday, Burrell Health Mart Pharmacy in Lower Burrell and Leechburg Health Mart Pharmacy in Leechburg closed their doors with no notice.
“Reimbursements are so bad, we’ve lost $100,000 since Dec. 1, 2023,” said Leechburg co-owner and pharmacist Alex Micklow. “It’s horrible. This is not what I wanted to do.”
It’s a familiar story. Every ambulance service has had similar laments. So have hospitals and doctor’s offices. It’s common for not just insurance reimbursement but especially for Medicare patients.
It is also not unusual to see a pharmacy — even a large corporate one — close. Rite Aid has closed dozens of stores nationwide, with at least nine in Southwestern Pennsylvania shuttering.
The Health Mart closings have meant prescriptions being relocated to Giant Eagle. It’s good that the patients weren’t just left high and dry, but it wasn’t a choice they made. The Giant Eagle stores in question might not be convenient to people without transportation or for other reasons. People’s medical decisions aren’t assets to sell.
A pharmacy is more than a store. It is the most accessible health care service many people have — and the one that gives them the medications they need to get or stay healthy every day. If they couldn’t keep the pharmacy they chose, people at the very least deserved a phone call ahead of time telling them what was happening.