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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Rural Kansas towns struggle to keep pharmacies

Having to drive to another town to go to the store or the cinema can be a bother, but when you or a family member are sick it can be a hardship. Communities in rural Kansas are having trouble recruiting qualified pharmacists to open or stay open in their towns, The Associated Press reports. Among the 105 counties in Kansas, 31 only have one pharmacy, and six have none at all. Pharmacies in urban areas often offer signing bonuses and incentives to pharmacists that rural pharmacies cannot offer.

The limited number of pharmacy-school graduates also adds to the challenge. "When the school is only graduating about a 100 a year, and you figure only a handful want to come to a small town, that is hard," says Dick Stanley, who is on a task force to recruit a pharmacist to Hoisington, population 3,000. "You are competing against every other western Kansas community that wants to attract the same person." While recently, state legislators moved to expand the pharmacy school at the University of Kansas, proposed budget cuts are threatening that expansion. (Read more)

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