Students at the College will be able to pick up prescription medications on campus starting on Nov. 18, filling the gap in service that will be created by tomorrow’s closure of the Williamstown Apothecary.
The program, a partnership between the College’s Health Center and the Berkshire Community Pharmacy of North Adams, will allow students to fill prescriptions through the pharmacy and retrieve them at the Health Center on weekdays between 4 and 5 p.m., when a pharmacy technician will be onsite. The pharmacy will provide same-day pickup for all prescriptions filed before 3 p.m., according to the College’s health services website.
“We know that the Apothecary closing is disruptive for students,” Senior Associate Dean for Administration, Finance, and Strategy Jeff Malanson wrote in an email to the Record. “We think that the pick-up service … should meet the needs of most of our students once they get used to the new way of doing things.”
Beyond the reduced pickup hours, the only major change for students will be the need to pay for prescriptions from Berkshire Community Pharmacy in advance. Customers could pay for their prescriptions when picking them up at the Apothecary.
If students have to fill a prescription outside the Health Center’s hours, they can arrange transportation to another pharmacy at no cost through Northern Berkshire Transport, with whom the College has a contract for non-emergency medical transportation.
Malanson also wrote that several students raised concerns about accessing emergency contraceptives such as Plan B — which are currently available for free to students at all hours in a vending machine in the Apothecary’s lobby — after it closes tomorrow. In response, the College has arranged for students to access free Plan B by showing their Williams ID at Berkshire Community Pharmacy, which is open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays.
Plan B will also be available during the Health Center’s regular hours, though Malanson added that the College is continuing to explore options to provide emergency contraception on campus at other times.
Malanson said he expects the transition in service to be smooth, in part because many of the Apothecary’s former staff will be transferred to Berkshire Community Pharmacy. Even so, he added that the new prescription pickup service is still a work in progress. “As with any new program, we will not be surprised if things in practice do not work precisely as we have planned,” he wrote. “The College and BMC [Berkshire Medical Center] stand ready to respond and adapt as needed if that should happen.”
“We believe that we have been able to implement approaches that afford our students who do not have their own transportation relatively ready access to their prescription medications,” he said. “We anticipate this being the best approach until a better one presents itself.”
