Tucked away in a former Ent Credit Union building on East Costilla Street in downtown Colorado Springs is the area’s first and only free pharmacy – the TLC Pharmacy.The “TLC” in the pharmacy’s title stands for “the Lord cares.””I’ve known for years that the city needed a free pharmacy for the poor,” said Marcella Ruch, former director of Mission Medical Clinic in Colorado Springs.While at Mission Medical, Ruch said she had to turn away people who had been released by emergency rooms with three days of antibiotics and a prescription for another 10 days that they couldn’t afford to fill.”It breaks your heart to have to turn away a sick person, but Colorado law doesn’t allow clinics operating under a community health license to dispense pharmaceuticals to patients who aren’t registered with the clinic,” she said.After attending a conference, Ruch learned about central fill pharmacies.”A central fill pharmacy is a pharmacy to which pharmaceutical companies give free bulk medicines to distribute to the poor,” she said.To open TLC Pharmacy, Ruch teamed up with Randall McPhee, a retired registered pharmacist; and Jeff Martin, pastor of the Open Bible Baptist Church in Colorado Springs and executive director of its medical clinic.Since opening in January, the pharmacy’s number of registered patients has doubled every month, Ruch said.”With an uninsured population in El Paso County of about 125,000 people, the need is tremendous,” she said. “There are probably more uninsured because a lot of people lost their health insurance when they lost their jobs. They might have other employment, but they don’t have health insurance.”According to TLC Pharmacy’s Web site, there’s an annual membership fee of $15 for individuals and $25 for families.To be eligible, applicants must provide a photo ID, proof of residency in El Paso or Teller counties and proof of income, which must be 200 percent or less than the federal poverty guidelines. For example, to be eligible for TLC, a family of five would have to have an annual income of $51,580 or less.This month, Senate Bill 10-115 takes effect, giving the pharmacy another source of free medicine.The bill allows licensed health care facilities to donate certain unused medications to nonprofit organizations, such as TLC Pharmacy, as long as the medication is in its original, unopened and sealed packaging and has not expired.SB10-115 is patterned after a 2005 Colorado law that allows the redispensing of medicines for treating cancer.Ruch has already lined up several places that will donate medicine to the pharmacy.”We have a complete pharmacy serving all kinds of needs, even mental health needs,” Ruch said.For more information about TLC Pharmacy, visit www.tlcpharmacy.org.
