By Roger White

Pharmacy owner concerned with awarding of tenders

Aug 15, 2017 | 12:00 PM

The owner of the Cut Knife and Turtleford Pharmacy is hoping to rally the community together in wake of the Prairie North Health Region’s recent decision to award tenders for the contract of packaging and distribution of daily prescription drugs to a provider from outside the communities.

Dana Karlson said his pharmacies have been providing the services in the area for several years however that will end when the current contract expires on Oct. 31.

“It’s a huge area of concern for the communities,” Karlson said. “With the demographic of both Cut Knife and Turtleford it’s pretty important to keep those services in the areas.”

Karlson added packaging and distribution of prescription drugs to the area nursing homes has been an important component for his business. He said that on top of the pharmacies being a local job provider, it also has the ability to change the necessary prescriptions being packaged on a day to day basis as well as deal with any emergencies.

“I was really confient that we were going to be able to keep those bids,” Karlson said. “We were offering everything they (Prairie North Health Region) asked for.”

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Derrick Miller, vice-president of Finance and Operations with Prairie North Health Region said last fall the region went through the process to procure services for all of the long-term health facilities in the province and as a result changes will be made.

“We posted a request for proposals in December of 2016,” Miller said. “It was an open, competitive and transparent process.”

Miller added once the proposals were received they were assessed against a criteria that was established which included professional delivery of service, accessibility, resident cost, stewardship and access to the medical distribution system.

“As a result of the competition, the Family Pharmacy in Lloydminster will be providing services to Turtleford and Battleford Drug Mart will be supplying the services to Cut Knife and Edam areas,” Miller said.

Concerned citizens of the area have started a petition at the Cut Knife and Turtleford Pharmacy asking the Prairie North Health Region to reconsider its decision to issue the tenders out of the communities.

Dana Karlson will also be attending a town meeting on Aug. 21 with the mayor and council to answer questions from the public. 

roger.white@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW