A small town 200 km north of Edmonton is losing its only pharmacy. The drug store will be closing, leaving community members scrambling over what this could mean for their medication.
The Rexall Pharmacy is a staple in Swan Hills. The town has a population of around 1,400 people, and the pharmacy is the only place for community members to get their prescriptions and pick up some essential items. Now they’ll have to find somewhere new.
Employees of the drug store and residents have been told the pharmacy is closing on April 30. Rexall says prescriptions will be transferred to other locations around the region. Those drug stores are up to an hour away.
This is a tough pill to swallow for local families and community members.
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“There are a lot of seniors living here with minimal transportation opportunities and a lot of young families that rely on the pharmacy for even just basic needs,” said Fraser Pollock.
The town and its residents say they’ve been left in the dark about why this is happening. Dean LaBerge is a town councillor and is worried about what this will do for attracting health-care workers in the region.
“Keeping them in our community can be a significant challenge, like it is for many smaller Alberta municipalities. If we were to lose our pharmacy, that would just compound what we’re already facing,” LaBerge said.
“I’m not even sure, to tell you the truth, at this point how we’d go about trying to attract a new pharmacist and a new pharmacy outlet, however that might look.”
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Global News reached out to Rexall to ask why they are closing the pharmacy, but they did not provide a reason.
“For many years, it has been our privilege to be part of the Swan Hills community. We understand how concerning this news is, and we want to emphasize that this decision was not made lightly,” said Erica Hung, communications director at Rexall.
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This community has suffered a blow here with the closure of the Rexall Pharmacy in Swanhills Alberta. This is a corporate decision profits over aging seniors population. No matter how much we complain about your corporate decision it has been made.I feel for the staff and what they are facing lost salaries not knowing what is the next step is as well the stresses of leaving Swanhills as well as no jobs here. I cannot resolve corporate profit margins due to high operations cost leasing going up and on and on it goes . It is just like politics but at a profit margin over people the only difference in government they take taxes increase taxes and cut funding to senior benefits. You Rexall Corporate it’s about the bottom line no people over profit margins and business. Anyway it’s done you out here in Swanhills Alberta people remember and usually when people come together do not for get the community will forget words travel fast in today’s highly competitive market for sure.
Poor Katz it was not making him rich enough
Hey Jack. I think your taxes should go up.
WE ALL need pharmacies but we ALL DO NOT NEED CHURCHES that continue to not pay any taxes on their NOW HUGE BUILDINGS. I would much rather that a pharmacy NOT be taxed at all and churches BECOME TAXED since not everyone goes to church so why should they be tax free? I wonder how many churches are tax free in Swan Hills?? Which one would the people of Swan Hills rather see go.
FYI: A pharmacy building assessed at $1,000,000, annual property taxes might be roughly $60,000+ in municipal taxes.
The municipalities tax companies into oblivion and then wonder why they leave.
Hey Swan Hills, tell the pharmacy your cutting their taxes in half and see what happens.