Wheatbelt residents facing 200km round trip to collect medication after bread truck delivery deal ends

Residents of several small southern Wheatbelt towns are facing a 200km round trip to collect their medications when a two-decade agreement to deliver prescriptions from Narrogin pharmacies on the back of bread trucks ends this month. Narrogin’s pharmacists are searching for a way to keep prescription medications being delivered to surrounding towns after the end of the agreement with Tip Top Bakeries’ delivery trucks. Residents from towns including Kulin, Kondinin and Hyden— which don’t have a pharmacy of their own— have relied on having their scripts faxed to one of the two Narrogin chemists to be filled and delivered. For a small fee, the pharmacists package the medications and drop them off at the Tip Top Bakeries depot for the trucks to collect and drop off on its regular bread delivery route to the local IGAs for residents to pick up. The service agreement will be terminated at the end of the month, leaving a Narrogin pharmacist and southern Wheatbelt resident worried about how they’re going to deliver and receive their medication. Narrogin Guardian Pharmacy pharmacist proprietor Nikhil Patel said they had relied on the “bakers’ run” to deliver the prescriptions to surrounding towns for more than 20 years. “I have sent emails to Tip Top management expressing our concerns and urging them to reconsider the two pharmacies in Narrogin to carry on using their invaluable services to ensure our customers continue to access their medication in a timely manner,” he said. “Most of the towns we serviced included, Pingelly, Williams, Corrigin, Wickepin, Dumbleyung, Kondinin, Kulin, Kukerin, Lake Grace, Lake King, Newdegate and Hyden. “It has been extremely beneficial using this service as it ensured our patients received their medication in a timely manner. “Often, urgent medication such as antibiotics could be delivered to these patients overnight.” A Tip Top Bakeries spokesman said they ended the service to enable the company to focus on only delivering Tip Top products. “Over the past several years, Tip Top Bakeries has assisted Narrogin chemists with its deliveries in the southern Wheatbelt towns of Western Australia,” he said. “Following a recent review of our processes and services, it is necessary for us to focus on the delivery of Tip Top products only moving forward. “We are currently working with the impacted local stores as part of the transition to minimise any disruption.” Kulin resident Lesley Dugall said she depended on the service to access her prescription medication. The 82-year-old said she doesn’t understand why Tip Top could not continue providing the paid service. “What I can’t understand is that the bread trucks are still going to be coming through, what’s the problem of them also bringing the scripts?” she said. “They’ve got to come here anyway, it’s not costing them anything extra, we pay a small fee for the service. “There’s no big deal about it.” Ms Dugall said people, especially elderly residents, shouldn’t be expected to drive a more than 200km round-trip to collect their prescriptions from Narrogin. “The lady over the road from me, she can’t drive and she doesn’t have a car, so she can’t get her own scripts,” she said. “Its 111km for us to drive to Narrogin and get the scripts ourselves and we’re all in our 80s, so it’s really a matter of how long we are going to have our licences for. “The only reason I would drive to Narrogin would be for a script, and that’s a hell of a long way to drive for just a script.” Mr Patel said the service was particularly vital during the pandemic. “More recently, COVID-19-positive patients have been able to access the antiviral medication urgently,” he said. “This service has once again enabled us to send out the much-needed medication to patients who are in self-isolation.” The service is set to cease at the end of July but Mr Patel said they haven’t had much notice to find another delivery service. “It has just come to our knowledge in the last three to four weeks that this service would no longer exist, and we are scrambling to find an alternative solution,” he said. “Possible solutions could be posting, which could take longer. “We have reached out to Hillside Farmers Direct Produce, and we are grateful they would help us out, however, they service these towns once weekly. “We have had many concerned customers, many whom we’ve been servicing for a number of years.”