$5M plus Value of medication dispensed since opening
CRESCENT SPRINGS – For people such as John and Carol Riley, St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy is a lifesaver.Pharmacy’s clients had fallen through cracks
By Cindy Schroeder
Enquirer staff writer
IF YOU GOBY THE NUMBERS
St. Vincent dePaul Community Pharmacy Inc.
90 Number of volunteers per month
1,900 Number of clients
82,000 Number of prescriptions filled since April 2002 opening
Once a month, the Rileys make the 45-minute trip from Warsaw to the charitable pharmacy to pick up almost $1,000 worth of prescription drugs that they otherwise couldn’t afford.
As one of three charitable pharmacies in Kentucky, the St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy distributes free medicine to hundreds of low-income Northern Kentucky residents who often have to choose between buying groceries or paying for prescription drugs.
Clients from the 14-county Covington Diocese are screened to ensure that they meet income and expense guidelines and to verify that they have no prescription drug coverage, said Rosana Aydt, a pharmacist who helped start the charitable endeavor with a friend in April 2002. The pharmacy does not dispense narcotics or birth control pills.
Aug. 15, the pharmacy – which also serves six outlying rural counties – passed the $5 million mark in prescriptions dispensed.
“If it wasn’t for St. Vincent’s, we couldn’t get any medicine at all,” Carol Riley said. Health problems have prevented Carol, 57, from working since 1981, and John retired on disability in 1993. John Riley is old enough to qualify for Medicare, the federal program that’s supposed to protect the elderly from the devastating costs of health care. But Medicare, with few exceptions, doesn’t cover the costs of prescription drugs – the largest out-of-pocket health-care expense for senior citizens.
“If you’ve got a problem, Rosana and the staff people who work at St. Vincent’s will sit down and talk with you,” Carol Riley said. “They don’t just shove you out the door and say, ‘We don’t have time for you.’ I can’t say enough about them.”
Aydt says the Rileys are typical of the pharmacy’s clientele. Besides senior citizens, the pharmacy also is seeing a growing number of mentally ill clients, as well as newly divorced or widowed women ages 50 to 64 “who are falling through the cracks,” Aydt said.
“They can’t work, they have no insurance, and they’re too young for Medicare,” she said.
While the St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy recently marked a milestone in drugs dispensed, supporters are constantly looking for ways to increase funding, Aydt said. Of the pharmacy’s $240,000 operating budget, one-third, or $80,000, comes from the Boone, Kenton and Campbell fiscal courts. The pharmacy relies heavily on donations of drug samples, but manufacturers are starting to reduce the free samples that they make available to doctors and charitable endeavors. Also, generic drugs and drugs such as insulin must be bought.
Aydt is trying to cultivate regular contributors, such as companies and churches, to ensure that the nonprofit endeavor has a steady stream of income. St. Vincent’s also wants people to remember them in their wills or through monthly contributions.
“The only way we’re going to survive is through grass-roots support, $50 here, $100 there,” Aydt said.
Although the pharmacy is affiliated with a Catholic organization, 90 percent of its clients are non-Catholics, especially with its expansion into rural areas. In December 2003, the pharmacy staff began making monthly trips to Grant County, and it has since started outreach programs in Carroll, Pendleton, Campbell, Gallatin and Owen counties.
Carol Riley, who quips “there isn’t a part of (her) body that hasn’t been operated on,” gets prescription drugs for asthma, high blood pressure and back and joint problems at the pharmacy. Her husband depends on the pharmacy to provide drugs for his high cholesterol, asthma and a chronic lung disorder.
“By the time I get done paying all my bills at the end of the month, I’m lucky if I have $10 left,” Carol Riley said. “If it wasn’t for St. Vincent’s, I don’t know what we’d do.”
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Tags: Anti-poverty strategies
