DANBURY — For the 3,000 Connecticut people without medical insurance who use the AmeriCares Free Clinics in Danbury, Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford, the clinics’ care has been steady. The clinics’ supply of prescription drugs has been less so.
When they can, the clinics supply patients with drugs that have been donated. When they can’t, patients are sent to pharmacies to get the prescriptions they need.
Now, pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim has pledged to provide the clinics with a reliable supply of three classes of drugs — antibiotics and those to treat high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“This will help a significant number of our patients,” said Karen Gottlieb, executive director of the AmeriCares Free Clinic program.
The effort is the latest Boehringer Ingelheim, a multinational company whose American headquarters straddles the Danbury-Ridgefield line, has made to support the free clinic movement.
“Our support goes back to the 1990s,” said Lilly Ackley, president of the Boehringer Ingelheim Cares Foundation.
In 2009, she said, the company’s support allowed AmeriCares to move its Danbury clinic from the basement of Ives Manor to a vastly larger space on West Street, which is known as the Boehringer Ingelheim AmeriCares Free Clinic.
Ackley said through discussions with AmeriCares, the company decided to add the free drug programs.
“It was a natural extension of what we were already doing,” she said.
AmeriCares, which began as an organization dedicated to providing help to countries hit by natural disasters, in the 1990s started to turn its attention to those in the U.S. who needed long-term help.
The free clinics provide care to the underinsured or those who have no insurance at all. They are often described as the working poor — people with low-paying jobs that don’t provides benefits like medical insurance.
“So far 8,000,000 people have signed up for the Affordable Care Act,” Ackley said. “But there is a still a large number of people who fall outside the safety net.”
Along with the Connecticut clinics, the Boehringer Ingelheim drug program will aid AmeriCares clinics in Florida, West Virginia, Texas and Ohio.
Gottlieb said when the clinics can’t depend on a steady supply of the same drugs, it creates problems for people who cannot easily manage their way through the health care system. Read Full Article
“If you tell them one time to take a pink pill, then the next time to take a purple pill, it can be confusing,” she said.
Different dose sizes can create confusion, she said, and people who work two or three jobs to make ends meet don’t always have time to go to a pharmacy.
“That’s what’s so good about this program,” Gottlieb said. “We’ll be able to give the same drugs to our patients, time after time.”
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