A pharmacy that has operated on Vancouver Downtown Eastside for over a decade is in danger of being shut down because of a decision by the provincial government.
Eastside Pharmacy at Hastings Street and Dunlevy Avenue has over 800 patients. Virtually all of them suffer from some sort of substance abuse, and many are HIV positive or Hepatitis C positive.
Earlier this year, the government decided to pull PharmaCare licences for Eastside and nearly 50 other locations. It means that come December 5, they’ll no longer have access to government funds to pay for drugs, which accounts for 70 per cent of their revenue.
But Alex Tam, who founded Eastside in 2004 and has been fixture in the DTES for 25 years, says he’s desperate to keep it going.
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“I’m worrying about it, but you know what? We’re going to be open. I don’t know how long, but we’ll open as long as we can,” says Tam, who was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013 for his contributions to the community.
“Let’s talk and resolve this. I’m a peaceful man, I only know one thing, which is to work and help people.”
But the provincial government says Tam’s pharmacy was one of many in B.C. with improper bookkeeping. An audit concluded Eastside owed $1.1 million to the province for invalid or ineligible claims.
“We dispute that figure, and the implication that we’re doing anything wrong,” says Tam’s daughter Tiffany, who is one of Eastside’s 10 employees.
“We totally recognize there were record keeping oversights on our part, we were always in the forefront focusing on patient care, we were never doing anything there were insinuating to maximize fees.”
Still, the provincial government seems adamant that Eastside will be removed from PharmaCare enrollment.
“The ministry made the final decisions to refuse enrollment after careful review of those responses. All affected pharmacies had the opportunity to appeal the decision,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
However, twenty medical professionals and outreach workers on the DTES have written to government in support of Eastside Pharmacy. They’re hopeful a resolution can be found.
“It’s very stressful for a lot of practitioners around here,” says Dr. Susan Burgess.
“We’ve known Alex as a very ethical and compassionate pharmacist who does extraordinary care for a lot of difficult people.”
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