March 22, 2007
A pharmacy in this neighborhood
From Reuters:
The nation's first not-for-profit pharmacy is located in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati's most notorious neighborhood -- one that is more blighted by boarded-up buildings than blessed with brand new businesses.
"I used to have to go all the way uptown to get my medicine," said Roberts, who lives off government disability payments due to seizures and asthma. "Sometimes I wouldn't have money to catch the bus. I just had to walk."
Neighborhoods like Over-the-Rhine underscore the plight of millions of poor people in the United States.
and later in the article:
"The clinic gets funds from local government, the University of Cincinnati, church groups and even a local billionaire philanthropist. Many of the medications are paid for by Medicaid, a government program that provides health care for the very poor.
Nursing homes donate unused medications, and drug companies give discounts.
Any profit the pharmacy makes will be poured back into the business or used for education programs.
Linda Elam, principal policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds research on health care, said it is a great model for communities -- inner-city neighborhoods and rural areas alike -- where a lack of a pharmacy has left a gap in health care.
"There is sort of a space between a physician writing and a patient filling a prescription, where you can lose a lot of people, whether they don't have money to fill it or don't have access to a pharmacy," Elam said.
"The poorest communities often have the largest illness burden, and they are the ones with the least means to deal with it.
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Posted by David Porter at 12:27 PM
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Category: Health Care; Health Disparities
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