Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A Roanoke charitable foundation has committed $100,000 over the next three years to help pay for prescription drugs for needy residents in the Roanoke and Alleghany health districts.
It is the largest grant The Foundation for Roanoke Valley has given in its five years and the only multiyear grant it has awarded, said Alan Ronk, executive director. The initiative has been labeled ``Prescription for a Healthier Community.''
The money will be given in the form of grants to organizations, which must submit applications by Sept. 15. Requests for proposals are going out this week to groups that already help people with medications, but other organizations also are invited to apply, Ronk said.
Residents' access to prescription drugs has been identified as a top need in the health districts.
It's estimated that 297,832 prescriptions for residents 35 and older go unfilled in the area annually because the people they're written for can't afford them, said Dr. Molly Rutledge, health director for the Roanoke and Alleghany districts. The total is based on a formula of 7.5 prescriptions per person.
Medicines are an important ``frontline strategy,'' and the proper use of them often can prevent more severe problems later, she said.
Dr. Paul Dallas, director of ambulatory medicine at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, followed Rutledge's comments with the story of a 55-year-old man who came to the hospital for treatment of chest pains.
The man's bill was $700, which he chose to pay off at $15 a month. But then the man couldn't afford to buy the heart medicine he needed, Dallas said, and he ended up back at the hospital.
``Statistics, we can forget. People, we can't,'' Dallas said. ``That problem exists in Roanoke. It's not only in big cities.''
If the man had returned to the clinic, the staff probably would have found a way to get his prescription filled, Dallas said.
Seventy percent of the patients who come to the indigent clinics held at Roanoke Memorial can't afford their medicines, he said.
The community already finds ways to foot the bill for more than 200,000 prescriptions for the needy, according to local statistics. The groups that help provide medicines to people who can't afford them include the Bradley Free Clinic, the health departments, the League of Older Americans and various church programs such as COPE in Alleghany County and Roanoke Area Ministries in the Roanoke Valley.
Some of them could end up sharing the foundation's grant, which comes from the Thomas P. and Lewise Parsley Fund established by Lewise Parsley, a Richmond native who graduated from Hollins College.
The Parsley fund has $1.5 million in assets and is the largest of the 21 funds administered by the foundation. Groups in the foundation's service area of Roanoke, Salem, and the counties of Roanoke, Botetourt and Craig are eligible to submit applications.
Anyone wishing more information on the procedure should call the foundation at 985-0204. The largest amount that any one agency or group can receive is $50,000. Selections are to be announced in November.
by CNB