Chicago CVS Closures Cause Major Headaches For Low-Income Seniors

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Signs are posted outside of a CVS store on November 5, 2013 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
GettyImages-187024218.jpg
Signs are posted outside of a CVS store on November 5, 2013 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Chicago CVS Closures Cause Major Headaches For Low-Income Seniors

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CVS has closed down a handful of pharmacies in Illinois over the past two months as part of a nationwide purge of 46 stores.

Three of the four closures in Chicago are on Chicago’s South and West Sides. Those stores were at 1550 N. Kostner Avenue in West Humboldt Park, 1620 W. 59th Street in West Englewood and 745 W. 103rd Street in Roseland.

According to people who shopped at the locations or lived nearby, the closures were abrupt and left residents reeling, especially seniors with medical needs.

The CVS closures come on the heels of a spate of Walgreens that shuttered over the past few years on the South and West sides, leaving more and more Chicagoans in so-called “pharmacy deserts.”

Morning Shift talks with folks from the affected neighborhoods about how the pharmacy closures are reverberating through their communities.

GUESTS: Melvin Thompson, executive director, The Endeleo Institute

Gloria Williams, founder of Voices Of West Englewood

LEARN MORE: CVS Closing 46 Stores (USA Today 5/2/19)