As closure looms, pharmacy inside Carney Hospital scrambles for a new home - The Boston Globe (2024)

After nearly a month of uncertainty, Lee just this week found somewhere to move her business, at least for now. But she’s one of many small business owners and workers whose livelihoods have been threatened by the Steward collapse, watching helplessly as executives, investors, state officials, and a bankruptcy judge negotiate over the wreckage.

The short notice left Lee little time and few options for relocating and continuing to serve her patients, let alone recouping financial losses. She’s worried about what will happen not just for her family’s sake, but for her patients’, many of whom are elderly, non-English speakers, and otherwise vulnerable.

“They trust us, they always tell us, ‘I will follow you wherever you go,’ so we’re very thankful about that, but we don’t know where to go,” Lee said last week, as the days until closure ticked by. ”There’s not enough time.”

Lee purchased Community Care Pharmacy shortly before Steward’s troubles came to light, and had a lease with the hospital through April 2025. But shortly after the closures were announced at the end of July, Lee in August received an early termination letter from Steward, ending her lease at the end of the month. She was told to be out by Aug. 30, with no offer of compensation nor funds to move.

And she had nowhere to go.

Lee, her husband, and their 22-year-old daughter Taeyeon Kim spent hours daily reaching out to nearby hospitals and commercial landlords, trying to find somewhere they could move the pharmacy on short notice. Initially, Steward suggested the Seton Medical Building next door to Carney Hospital, but the firm that manages that building told Lee — in an email reviewed by the Globe — that she couldn’t move in until Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings in Houston are finalized.

Steward and Carney Hospital declined to comment.

Other places rejected Lee outright or asked for rents she couldn’t afford, if they returned phone calls at all. Then there were matters of timing.

To relocate, pharmacies must submit operational, security, and medication storage plans to the state Board of Registration in Pharmacy. Approval can take two or three months, said Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association — time Lee didn’t have. If Carney closed and Lee had nowhere to go, she worried her medications and patient records would be locked in the hospital indefinitely.

She turned to state officials for support, too. Her daughter Taeyeon testified at the Department of Public Health hearing on the Carney closure earlier this month and left more than 20 messages with the department and the governor’s office, she said. Even on the rare occasion when they got a reply, it didn’t come with meaningful help.

Finally, this week, came progress. The family located a spot on Bowdoin Street in Dorchester — more than 2 miles north of Carney — the storefront of the shuttered Hamilton Pharmacy. A lease is not yet finalized, but Taeyeon Kim said a state inspector told her family the space is acceptable, and Lee is now cautiously optimistic they will be able to move and continue serving their patients.

In a statement to the Globe, the Department of Public Health said it is “deeply committed to supporting the Community Care Pharmacy” and helping Lee navigate the transition, including safely storing prescription drugs if needed.

“Our Pharmacy Board staff have been involved in ongoing communication, including conducting on-site visits to assist with the regulatory requirements and logistical challenges involved in relocating the pharmacy,” said Robbie Goldstein, commissioner of the department, in the statement. “We are dedicated to doing everything possible to support the community and work toward continuity of care for those who have counted on the Community Care Pharmacy.”

Lee hopes the move to Bowdoin Street is just temporary and still aims to find a more permanent location in a hospital or other health care facility that will both have enough foot traffic for her business to survive and be close enough to transit that current patients can reach her. Many independent pharmacies operate on thin margins — Lee herself has not drawn a salary since taking over this year — but they provide an essential service to many vulnerable patients, said Dr. Guy Fish, chief executive of Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester.

The Steward crisis, and threat to Lee’s business, also comes amid a wider rash of pharmacy closures, especially in predominately Black and Latino neighborhoods where national chains have pulled back.

“What you lose when pharmacies close, whether they are family-owned or big chain, is the ability to actually go the last mile,” Fish said. That “includes the hand-holding, the education, the advice, the coaching that pharmacists give, particularly family pharmacies, who are staffed by people who are in the profession because of a love of their patients.”

And their patients are whom Lee and her family are most worried about.

After nearly 10 years of working in the Carney Hospital lobby, Lee and her Vietnamese-speaking pharmacy technician, Hung Tran, know their patients personally. They take a lot of pride in the language services that help make their patients, many of whom don’t speak English, feel more comfortable. They know how much it means that they offer home delivery and help patients sync up various medications.

The impending closure of Carney Hospital has been rocky at best, and when even a business-owning pharmacist feels “completely abandoned,” she worries about people with less wherewithal to navigate the system.

“We reached out for help everywhere we thought we could maybe get help, and the state keeps saying that ‘this is going to be a really safe transition, and we’re making sure there’s alternate avenues for everyone impacted,’” Taeyeon Kim, Lee’s daughter, said. “That’s not what’s actually happening.”

Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.