CINCINNATI — For most longtime patrons of the CVS in Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills, September’s announcement came as an inconvenient surprise. The store was set to close in about a month, and they’d have to transfer their prescriptions to another pharmacy service or head another mile and a half down the road to the next closest CVS.
For others, particularly those at the three nearby affordable senior apartment complexes, the situation was a little more complicated.
Many cannot drive or travel long distances because of disability. Betty Gaines considers herself lucky she can walk roughly half a mile to the store.
“It’s a struggle for me and a lot of other people who are not as able to get around as I am,” she said.
The store’s closure is just one of 900 set over the next three years as CVS plans to reduce their brick and mortar density. For neighborhoods like Walnut Hills, it means adapting to avoid becoming a pharmacy desert.
Primarily in low-income areas, pharmacy deserts are places where prescription medications are difficult to access because of high prices, poor transportation, or long distances.
“You imagine three or four buildings of senior citizens, some of them are disabled, some of them are on walkers, some of them are on scooters,” Gaines said describing her neighborhood. “That’s a lot of people being in this place where they can’t get what they need and they been here all their life. It’s sad.”
Pharmacy deserts often lead to greater health disparities among neighborhoods and lower life expectancies, but with enough foresight and the right partners, the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation is hoping to ensure it won’t come to that in their neighborhood.
Through a partnership with Equitas Health, the health care provider opened a clinic in the neighborhood in March 2020, about hal- a-mile north of the CVS. Nick Saltsman, the chief pharmacy officer with Equitas, said the goal from the beginning was improving public health.
“We identified the Walnut Hills community as an area where a lot of people experience health disparities and being there just made total sense,” he said.
Besides offering primary care services, the clinic also includes a pharmacy, where anyone, regardless of their health care provider, can send their Rx medication. Since the CVS announcement, Saltsman said his team has been working with the Walnut Hills community to help get some of its most vulnerable residents to transfer their prescriptions there or get signed up for free delivery services.
“We’re just going door to door,” he said. "We’re working with a lot of the local businesses there in Walnut Hills, the restaurants, barber shops, different groups and they’re helping us to kind of get the word out.”
For those like Steve Jones, who said he’s lived in the neighborhood nearly his entire life, this closure feels like the last straw. When the neighborhood Kroger closed in 2018, he already got in the habit of heading downtown for everything he needed.
“All the convenience stores that we have in this neighborhood, to walk to, they take them all away,” he said.
Now he plans to move from the Kemper Lane Apartments to another affordable housing complex closer to downtown and closer to resources he can walk to, though he said he understands not all of his neighbors will be lucky enough to find another place.
“We need to change this because we don’t have nowhere to go, and the rent is sky high,” he said.
Gaines hasn’t decided yet where she plans to get her medication next.
“I get tired of trying to figure things out,” she said. “It’s mind-boggling.”
She said while she appreciates the help of groups like Equitas and the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, she’d rather see organizations like CVS and other companies reach out to the neighborhoods before making changes that have such a big impact on their lives.
“Treat us like we live here,” she said. “Like we’re people and include us in some of these decisions that they’re making.”
The Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation hopes the neighborhood is moving toward a more permanent solution soon. In the former Kroger location, construction will begin on a mixed-use retail and housing complex. One tenant is expected to be a local co-op market.
In the meantime, besides the pharmacy and health clinic, Equitas Health hopes to add a small market to its location up the road, in the next few months.
CVS will close on Oct. 12. Unless patients take additional actions, any prescriptions at the location will be transferred to the next closest location at 17 Taft Road.