I have a dear friend who teaches school. She has been traumatized by the Covid pandemic, in part for fear of infecting students with a deadly disease. She is also a cancer survivor, and one of the most obsessive people I know regarding masking and Covid hygiene. This past Tuesday she absolutely needed to get the prescription meds that she depends on to maintain her health. Now for most people this wouldn’t seem like that big a deal, and it shouldn’t be. But most people don’t live here in Oregon.
She ended up waiting in line for over two hours at the local Fred Meyer store. This involved dealing with multiple unmasked or poorly masked idiots in the store. Her experience waiting in line is now the norm here. This is because a local chain, Bi-Mart, closed its pharmacy operations the end of September. Their customers were supposed to be transferred to Walgreen’s but the volume is way beyond what they can handle.
I personally have attempted five times in the past week to pick up a medication that I use but am not totally dependent on. I always go during what are normally off times. The shortest line I saw had over twenty people waiting. This was after I had to drive to the store to inquire about my prescription which was normally automatically filled. When I called the line just kept ringing forcing me to show up in person. (When I complained to management about the pharmacy not answering their phones I was hung up on. I guess I shouldn’t have told the manager in question that I was upset. They apparently consider ANY level of upset as grounds to discontinue the conversation, no matter how calmly delivered.) When I went to the drop off window I was told that they were a week behind at that point. Out of curiosity I checked the Walgreen’s up the street. A lady coming out reported that she waited for over an hour, and the drive through line extended out to the street.
This has been going on for well over a month now. Just as case numbers are picking up again is a perfect time to force sick people to wait in public lines for hours. Part of the problem is the lack of trained personnel. Pharmacists are in demand, as are pharmacy techs. But raising their wages to attract more workers is problematic due to the pricing structure in the US drug market. As such it is hard to say when or if the long wait lines here will recede.
Meanwhile, another significant item in the news lately was the story of the court case in Ohio regarding opioid distribution. CVS, Walgreen’s and Walmart are responsible for flooding Ohio counties with pain pills, jury says. This is purely the result of our for-profit drug distribution system. In a non-profit situation there would not be the incentive to addict people in order to move more product. There would not be the incentive to continue feeding that addiction instead of trying to heal the people affected.
How long, America? How long? Predatory capitalism is literally killing us. In seven states it is illegal for private enterprises to sell alcohol. If that level of regulation is acceptable for a recreational product then it should surely be acceptable for medications on which many depend for quality of life or life itself.
The states that currently have state-owned liquor stores are:
- Alabama.
- Idaho.
- New Hampshire.
- North Carolina.
- Pennsylvania.
- Utah.
- Virginia.