Matthew 25 cut the ribbon Friday on its new pharmacy, the culmination of a goal the organization had had for years.
Courtney Woolfork, Matthew 25’s CEO, said that much of the push for the organization to start its own pharmacy came from patients. Some Matthew 25 patients have reported that they have experienced discrimination or less that acceptable treatment from people who were supposed to be helping them, she said, noting that at the “root of it is trust” and having a Matthew 25 pharmacy allows them to be open and give and get the information they need.
“The need for the pharmacy came from our core beliefs that people deserve high quality patient-centered health care, regardless of anything,” said Woolfork.
Woolfork said that patients can come to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions or it can be mailed discreetly overnight.
The pharmacy is located at 101 NW First Street, Suite 201, in downtown Evansville. In the same building, a Matthew 25 clinic is located.
Matthew 25 was founded in Henderson, and some initial thought was given to locate the pharmacy in Henderson. But Woolfork said that Indiana law allows prescription drugs to be shipped to both states, whereas Kentucky law allows only for shipment of prescription drugs within the state.
Because so many Matthew 25 patients live in a 25-county area in western and central Kentucky and a 12-county area in southern Indiana, it made sense to place the pharmacy where it can ship to all patients, Woolfork said.
“So, all patients can be served from the Indiana location,” she said.
The pharmacy has been on the organization’s strategic planning for some time, and when Woolfork came on as CEO in 2022, the goal of building a pharmacy was “deeply embedded.”
At 2023’s Runway Red program, the annual fundraising event for Matthew 25, the organization announced that is was going forth with making the pharmacy a reality. A little over a year later, it opened. To get to the opening, local officials worked with a consultant who is a retired pharmacist and the Positive Impact Health Center out of Atlanta, Woolfork said.
Woolfork said that patient care and medications for HIV-infected patients have come a long way since the early days, in the 1980s and 1990s, when less research had been done and a greater stigma surrounded the condition.
Then, there were numerous pills that patients had to take every day. Now, she said patients can take one, or even get a long-acting injection. There’s also a pill, PrEP, that “virtually eliminates” the chances of contracting HIV, she said.
She said that most of Matthew 25’s patients are around middle age and older. Many need help navigating the intricacies of Medicare, something that couldn’t have been expected in the early days of the epidemic when many lived a year or two after contracting HIV, she said.
With the better research and medication, there’s the dream that clinics and pharmacies might go out of business when there are no more patients to serve.
“That’s the goal,” Woolfork said.
