Residents of the Estación de Nacimiento neighborhood in Chile will have its own community pharmacy
The initiative was made possible thanks to the company’s efforts in conjunction with the Municipality of Nacimiento, Biobío Region, Chile, the Foundation for Overcoming Poverty and the Nueva Vida local neighborhood council.
On November 20, the community of the Barrio Estación de Nacimiento sector, Biobío Region, Chile, got some very good news. Thanks to the work of the Tripartite Table in which nine neighborhood councils, the municipality and CMPC’s community relations department all participated, different work priorities were set out, including the construction of a pharmacy in the Nacimiento neighborhood.
The announcement was made during a ceremony that was attended by Nacimiento Municipality Mayor Carlos Toloza and elected councilors, President of the Nueva Vida Neighborhood Council Maritza Riquelme, Cristian Riquelme, regional director of the Foundation for Overcoming Poverty in Biobío, and CMPC Community Relations Deputy Manager Francisco Reveco as well as other representatives of area social organizations.
This pharmacy will be inaugurated in January 2024 to address the need to provide the Barrio Estación sector with a low-priced, convenient pharmacy, improving access to quality medicines for residents.
“The truth is that we’re proud of the work we’ve done at the table so that this long-held community desire of having a local pharmacy can become a reality. Not only will this pharmacy make low-cost medicines available, it also comes along with the professional support of a pharmaceutical chemist helping the community. This tremendously important achievement is the result of working together with the communities and the municipality,” said Francisco Reveco, CMPC Community Relations Deputy Manager.
Nacimiento Mayor Carlos Toloza sees this pharmacy as something that will improve the quality of life of area residents. “We, as a municipality, provided the land where this pharmacy is to be built. It will offer low prices for residents since this is a community pharmacy designed to help save time and money. No one has money to throw around these days. We’ve just signed the agreement to begin work in the coming weeks. In January 2024, we will inaugurate this pharmacy, which will provide a of bit of justice to an area that has oftentimes felt left behind,” stressed the community leader.
For María Angélica Beltrán, president of the Neighborhood Council of the town of Lautaro in the Biobío Region of Chile, “This pharmacy will fill a very important need for residents, especially for the elderly and children. This is great news. We worked on it very briefly at the dialogue table with the council presidents. It came together so quickly that we almost couldn’t believe it, but it is now a reality. This is a blessing. We thank God for this as well as the company and the municipality for its contribution. This will help the entire community, all of the many neighborhoods,” said the social leader.
A similar opinion was expressed by Maritza Riquelme, Nueva Vida Neighborhood Council President of the Estación de Nacimiento neighborhood. “This pharmacy is simply incredible because it turns out that medicines are very expensive. Now because of an agreement we have, they should be cheaper. We’ll also save money on transportation, an expense we’ll save on since we won’t have to go downtown to purchase medication because everything will be here in our own backyard,” said Maritza Riquelme.
Representatives of CMPC, the Foundation for the Overcoming Poverty and the mayor all signed the collaboration protocol in order to properly plan how this pharmacy will operate over time. The resources were only one aspect of implementing this project. It also required compliance with various rules and regulations as well as project design and application to funding sources.
