PHOTO BY MICHELLE OWNBEY
The pharmacy inside the County Market in Fairhills Mall has a sign notifying customers that June 12 will be the last day of operations and prescriptions have been sold to CVS.
The pharmacies in all three of Springfield’s
remaining County Market locations, as well as one in Chatham, will permanently
close as of June 12. All ongoing prescriptions have been purchased by CVS.
Customers will be able to fill their prescriptions at any CVS location in
Springfield, according to a spokesperson for Quincy-based Niemann Foods, which
owns the County Market chain.
“This will make it far more difficult
for people in the downtown area of Springfield to get their prescribed
medication,” said Garth Reynolds, CEO of the Illinois Pharmacy Association. “It
looks very much like a growing pharmacy desert,” he added, pointing out that
not all pharmacy users have equal mobility and that low-income and elderly
customers could be disproportionately affected. According to Reynolds, 85
pharmacies have closed throughout the state of Illinois in the past year.
In Springfield, the area surrounding
downtown had six pharmacies just eight years ago, but will only have one left following
the County Market closure. In February 2017, CVS closed its location at 611
South Grand Ave. and Walgreens closed a store at 1155 N. Ninth St. In 2023, Walgreens
closed its location at the intersection of Fifth Street and South Grand Avenue
and CVS closed a store at Ninth Street and North Grand Avenue. CVS still
operates a store at Second and Carpenter streets, across from County Market.
“The pharmacy business is a tough
business to be in, especially when it’s not your core business,” said Gerry
Kettler of Niemann Foods. “We were approached by CVS and Walgreens and we made
the tough but necessary decision to sell to CVS. That’s as simple as it gets.
We decided to take this opportunity as the best option for the pharmacy centers
and our company.”
The reasons behind decreased pharmacy
options locally and nationwide are complex and far-reaching. “The big insurance
companies that cover people’s prescriptions, they weren’t around when I started
practicing,” recalled retired pharmacist John Watt, formerly of Springfield’s
Watt Brothers Pharmacy. “Way back when, people paid cash or ran charge accounts
for their prescriptions. Then when the United Auto Workers set aside some money
in their contract talks for a drug program in the 1970s, that changed things
considerably.”
Other more recent factors Watt
identified as making things harder for pharmacies include the increased
prevalence of mail order prescriptions and the use of third-party pharmacy
benefit managers, who, he said, “tell stores what they can sell and how
much to charge and then claw back some of the charges at a later date.”
Looking forward, there is reason for
hope, even if it has arrived too late for the County Market pharmacies. The Prescription Drug Affordability Act (HB
1697), which recently passed the Senate and House and is now waiting to be
signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker, takes aim at these specific issues and
others, with particular attention to reigning in pharmacy benefit managers,
which Pritzker characterized as “predatory” in a statement.
“The House bill passing is a good
thing,” said Reynolds. “It will help protect independent pharmacies statewide
and make sure that people have access to them.”
The
affected County Market locations are: 1903 W. Monroe St., 210 E. Carpenter St.,
1501 S. Dirksen Parkway and 1099 Jason Place, Chatham.