By Avellon Williams
KINGSTON, JAMAICA – To reduce the fear of discrimination among people living with HIV who seek medication, Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL) opened its pharmacy yesterday. It is named Life’s Work Pharmacy and is located at the organization’s Kingston office. It will also provide other medications.
“The pharmacy offers a full range of services and accepts all health plans”. “I urge everyone to support us because we are hoping that any revenue earned from the pharmacy will enable us to support the efforts of our organization,” JASL’s Executive Director Kandasi Levermore stated after the opening ceremony.
HIV clients would be able to access a one-stop-shop, Levermore explained.
“One of the challenges we faced was that our patients would get the medical services, the lab services, and the psychosocial services here, but could not get prescriptions filled. Therefore, this is a crucial development, since our clients will now leave with their antiretroviral drugs. The gap is fully closed now,” she said.
Levermore says that the absence of a pharmacy at JASL is usually one of the chief complaints clients have, especially when they feel uncomfortable picking up their medications at other drug stores.
“It was a very sore point for them. Various members of the community complained about the long waiting time for the drugs and having to let a lot of people into their lives.
The patients are elated about the pharmacy, [and] they can’t believe they’ll be able to walk straight from the doctor’s office to the pharmacy,” she said, adding that it’ll be open from Mondays through Saturdays.
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