Residents concerned for longtime community business
Snow Hill residents are rallying around the town’s only pharmacy after learning the Worcester County Jail has stopped using the longtime local business to provide medication for inmates.
Snow Hill Pharmacy owner Jeffrey Sherr said he feels stung that the county did not inform him the arrangement was ending, and that he only found out secondhand from a jail employee. He said his Market Street business has been the jail’s primary medication provider since opening its doors in 1999.
“Twenty-seven years. Nobody said anything. Nothing. It hurt us,” he said at a Snow Hill council work session Tuesday night.
After the pharmacy announced it would cut hours beginning Aug. 1, closing Wednesdays and Saturdays, residents began raising concerns online. Pharmacy employees have been circulating a petition to garner support, with about 150 signatures so far.
Sherr also said the business was in the red last year despite regularly billing the county more than $120,000 annually for jail medications.
“Why in the heck would anybody in their right mind who’s losing $13,000 on a business want to keep it open?” he said at the meeting, extending a pointed finger around the room. “For you all. That’s the reason behind it.”
Worcester County last fall dropped longtime jail healthcare provider Wellpath and its $1.9 million contract. The county commissioners entered into a renewable 12-month contract with CFG Health that is about $100,000 cheaper. It took effect Dec. 1.