TLC Pharmacy filling gap for many of area's uninsured

Three weeks out of prison and uninsured, Leslie Evans was in a bind. She ran out of her blood pressure medicine about 10 days ago, and had been without her antidepressants even longer. With no job and no money, she wasn’t sure how she’d get more of her medications, and she was getting desperate.

On Tuesday night, during a visit to the nonprofit Open Bible Medical Clinic, she met pharmacist Randy McFee, and he had just the prescription: TLC Pharmacy.

The pharmacy opened on the east side in January to serve the poor and uninsured, and in May moved to the former Ent Federal Credit Building at 555 E. Costilla St. . For a $15 annual enrollment fee and verification of eligibility, people in need can get almost any medication they need for free.

“This means everything to me,” said Evans, 35, as she finished filling out paperwork Wednesday morning. “I’m an emotional wreck right now. These medicines are important to help me stay focused.”

The pharmacy grew out of a working relationship between Jeff Martin, Open Bible’s executive director, and Marcella Ruch, who was head of Mission Medical Clinic. Several other safety net clinics provide medications to their own clients, but Martin said he and Ruch were seeing plenty of people who fell outside that realm, including indigent patients coming from the emergency room and people such as Evans who are fresh out of prison.

“We were working together and saw a need for a pharmacy,” said Martin, who oversees TLC. “Some people are having to make choices between food and medicine.”

In the first six months of operation, TLC had dispensed more than $90,000 worth of medications to several hundred patients. By year’s end, Martin expects the pharmacy will be serving 4,000 patients, and when it eventually goes from its current three-day-a-week schedule to five days, he anticipates being able to serve 22,000 people.

The pharmacy is funded entirely by donations and staffed mostly by volunteers, including 10 pharmacists. The bulk of the medicines are provided free by pharmaceutical companies, but the pharmacy can now augment its supplies, thanks to a state law that went into effect July 15, allowing hospitals, nursing homes and some other health care facilities to donate unused medicines. Previously, the medicines had to be destroyed. TLC also will buy any medicines that haven’t been donated,

Inside the medication room at TLC, shelves are lined with a variety of medicines, including nicotine patches. The old bank vault will be used to store narcotics, making this free pharmacy different from many others, Ruch said.

“A lot of places think it’s a bother to do it, but we decided in a board meeting that we’d bother with it,” she said. “We’re very careful with it; we’ll check for a list of narcotics abusers.”