Pharmacies are one in all a number of health-related points that concern me as a member of the state Senate Well being and Lengthy-Time period Care Committee.
Pharmacy closures are sweeping throughout Washington state, and the implications are extra than simply inconvenient — they’re harmful. Up to now 18 months alone, no less than 83 pharmacies have shut their doorways statewide, making Washington one of many hardest-hit states within the nation. Communities from Anacortes to Yelm have misplaced entry to crucial well being providers, and the losses maintain mounting as Rite Aid shutters extra places and Bartell Drugs — as soon as a proud native establishment — disappears into chapter 11.
This disaster didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the results of company consolidation, investor-driven cost-cutting and the explosive progress of on-line pharmacies that prioritize quantity over neighborhood care. Over the previous 5 years, main retail chains like CVS and Walgreens have closed a whole bunch of shops nationwide, and plan to shut 1000’s extra, citing a must “optimize” retailer footprints within the face of digital competition and retail theft.
The outcome has been a hollowing out of pharmacy care. In rural and working-class communities, the closest pharmacy is now sometimes an hour away. In cities, shops shut in neighborhoods the place margins are low, even when demand is excessive. Washingtonians aren’t merely shedding comfort. We’re shedding suppliers who provide vaccines, reply questions, monitor prescription problems and know their sufferers by title. Pharmacies are our first line of defense in well being care.
Thousands and thousands of Individuals already live in pharmacy deserts, areas with restricted to no entry to pharmacy providers. Each closure pushes extra individuals into that class. For aged sufferers, these with disabilities and people with out vehicles, driving 30 miles for a refill is usually unattainable. Affected person security is in danger.
What can we do? Congress should act decisively.
We will additionally urge Congress and the Meals and Drug Administration to cease a harmful shift away from printed Affected person Treatment Data — the lifesaving info included with prescriptions on the pharmacy. The FDA has proposed a rule to shift this info to a digital-only format, leaving sufferers with no paper copy until they ask for one at checkout. This info explains the way to take a drugs, what negative effects to anticipate and the way to retailer it. It’s crucial to security, particularly for sufferers with out entry to broadband or smartphones to scan a QR code on the pharmacy. On prime of that, the rule forces pharmacies to select up the price of printing, not pharmaceutical corporations, which might price pharmacists billions and certain result in much more pharmacy closures.
Specialists have been sounding the alarm that the FDA’s proposed rule might deepen well being disparities. Many sufferers, particularly older Individuals, rural of us and low-income individuals with out smartphones or constant broadband entry received’t know or keep in mind to ask for a printed copy. And if pharmacies are compelled to print solely on request, most sufferers merely received’t get one. It will result in extra missed doses, extra overdoses and extra adversarial drug occasions. Already, greater than 120,000 Individuals die yearly from treatment nonadherence.
The answer is easy: Congress ought to require that drug producers print PMI and hand it to each affected person by default, not disguise it behind a QR code or power pharmacies to print it at their price at a buyer’s request. A bill launched final Congress, the Sufferers’ Proper to Know Their Treatment Act, would do exactly this, and our representatives in Congress ought to assist it.
The collapse of Washington’s pharmacy community just isn’t an remoted occasion. It’s a part of a nationwide breakdown in entry, affordability and affected person security. Nonetheless, if we put money into native care and maintain offering printed treatment info, we will mitigate this disaster’s worst results.
