Dallas pharmacy provides free life-saving medications to thousands in need
By Bo Evans
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NORTH TEXAS (KTVT) — Prescription drugs can be expensive, and most pharmacies don’t care if you’re rich or poor; the medicine costs the same whether you can afford it or not.
The St. Vincent de Paul Pharmacy in Dallas looks like any other pharmacy on the outside – filling bottles, scanning prescriptions, packing up medicine and shipping it out to patients.
“Last year we helped over 4,000 patients,” said pharmacy manager Carlos Irula.
And if you look a little closer, you’ll see things are a little different here.
“Too good to be true, or something like that, but in this case it really is true,” said Irula.
That’s because the pharmacists here, like Irula, are filling and shipping life-saving medications all for free.
“This service is 100% free to patients,” he said.
Patients like Ana Orenalla don’t pay a dime for medication.
“My husband is diabetic. I think we would have spent a lot. At least $300 a month. It’s just a lot of money,” she said.
Orenalla cleans houses. Her husband is unable to work because of his health but used to do landscaping and construction.
They qualify for the free prescription drugs at the pharmacy because they have no health insurance and have an income 300% below the poverty line. According to the pharmacy, one out of six Texans fall in this category.
“We wouldn’t be able to pay for his medicine, and he would have to go back to a medication that really didn’t help him,” said Orenalla.
That’s a choice this pharmacy is helping thousands of patients avoid. Since 2018, they’ve delivered $100 million in free medications to patients like Orenalla and her husband.
“The situations that most of our patients come through, they get the doors closed a lot. Many times, we’re the safety net, we’re the last line of defense when it comes to, you either have your medication or you end up in the hospital,” said Irula.
The pharmacy relies mostly on donations to deliver the service.
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