WIUM Local
(2007-07-23)
The county's Rural Health Center Director Melinda Whiteman says when a group was reviewing what the county needed, a pharmacy was high on the list.
She says the last one in the county closed during the 1990s, leaving some residents with a 20-mile round trip to fill a prescription.
She says a combination of grants will build a 1,400 square foot addition to the health center. A local family of pharmacists will dispense medication.
Whiteman says the center's status will allow it to purchase many medications at a lower price to assure that low-income patients will get their prescriptions filled.
In addition, she believes having the pharmacist and physician in close proximity will make it easier to do the patient education required.
That will include instruction in how to take the medicines, and what medications should not be mixed.
Whiteman says the construction should be completed by late October. She expects to be dispensing medicines by mid-November.
Whiteman says the center should also eliminate problems caused by people being unable to get a ride to get their medication or having someone else pick it up but not deliver it to the patient for a few days.
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