Soon Northwestern students will no longer be able to legally buy drugs on campus.
The Searle Hall pharmacy will close by the end of the school year – or earlier if the pharmacist finds another job, said Donald Misch, executive director of Health Services.
The decision to close the pharmacy was part of the budget planning process, Misch said. Some administrators felt the pharmacy was losing money, but there is also data to show otherwise, he said.
“If you ask the question, ‘Did it make more money than it cost to run it?’ the answer is yes,” he said. “But the budget is more complicated than that. I’m not entirely sure on why the decision was made.”
William Banis, vice president of student affairs, could not be reached Thursday.
For Christina Minich, the news came as no surprise, she said. The Weinberg junior said she did not know many students who used the pharmacy.
“But it’s definitely going to make things more inconvenient for people who don’t get things from CVS,” she said.
The “convenience of one-stop shopping” is one of the main benefits of the on-campus pharmacy, Misch said. The easier it is for people to follow up with medical recommendations, the more likely they are to do it, he said.
“If you have to go to the doctor and get x-rays, and go to the pharmacy and don’t have a car, that’s a lot of work,” he said.
When Weinberg junior Rohini Menezes bruised her back while climbing a fence last spring, picking up her prescription painkillers at the Searle pharmacy was a lot easier than going to the CVS pharmacy at 1711 Sherman Ave. would have been, she said.
“It was a really nice resource to have because it took away the hassle to go to CVS,” she said. “It’s so convenient to go down a floor and get what you need.”
The NU pharmacy also allows students to fill prescriptions for up to three months instead of the usual one month. It does not tax over-the-counter drugs and offers “substantial discounts” on oral contraceptives, given only to student health centers, Misch said.
The closing will mean disposing of the medications on store and extra work for students with refillable prescriptions, he said. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the pharmacy cannot hand over student prescriptions to another pharmacy. The student must sign a waiver or have a doctor write a new prescription, he said.
The NU pharmacy was known for its good service, Misch said.
“We’re not as rushed as CVS,” he said. “We have folks who will spend a lot of time talking to you and explaining it to you.”
For the Evanston CVS, closing the NU pharmacy will mean more business, said Justin Smith, CVS pharmacy’s lead technician.
They currently fill about 300 prescriptions a day – 200 of those for NU students, said Smith, who has been working with the pharmacy for three and a half years.
“We’re capable of handling whatever is thrown at us,” he said.
Communication senior Julia Beck, who has never used the NU pharmacy, said she did not think she would miss it.
“I wouldn’t even have known it was gone,” she said.
But for Misch, who was looking forward to the expanded pharmacy called for in early Searle Hall renovation plans, closing the pharmacy “is really too bad.”
“I worry that if the pharmacy closes, it won’t reopen,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
