There was an article a few months back in the Washington Post business section about the precarious existence of the neighborhood pharmacy, and about the particular plight of the Leesburg Pharmacy. First the gloomy picture:

…The pharmacist with remedies for everyone is not at all sure she can heal herself. Nationwide, more than 1,100 independent pharmacies went out of business last year squeezed by shrinking reimbursements from insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid.

From behind the pharmacy counter, Garvin says she can feel the forces of competition turning the economy into one giant distribution chain, moving ever more products to ever more people at ever lower costs, mowing down everything in between. Amazon.com did it to bookstores, Home Depot did to hardware stores, and now so many forces are converging on community pharmacies that it feels like a tornado at the door–with nothing pushing back but a slight and hyperkinetic Garvin in her white pharmacist’s coat.

But, thankfully, there’s a higher purpose to a neighborhood pharmacy, and a more importantly a real need for them:

…Hospice patients who can’t swallow can have the active ingredients in their medicines compounded into drops or creams. Parents of pediatric reflux patients come from and alcohol-free version of the adult medicine. Those allergic to the dyes in many drugs can get a compounded version of their medicine free of artificial coloring.

Lynn Gibson, a retired Army employee visited the pharmacy last week. He said his head felt like a bowling ball from a sinus infection that had proved impervious to the most powerful antibiotic pills. His doctor had had a long phone conversation with Lisa Strucko, and she mixed antibiotic nose drops to attack the sinuses directly. Gibson drove here, 10 miles from her home, to get them, paying $12 more than he would have for pills. He said that he had called CVS, Giant and Safeway looking for a compounding lab and that “everyone said, ‘We don’t do it.’” A week later, he said he was finally feeling relief. “I told Lisa if this works I’m going to take her out and get her drunk,” he said.

Little doubt there are challenges, but there is even less doubt our community is better off for having a dedicated local pharmacy.

For the whole article, click here for page 1, and here for page 2.