‘It’s sad for rural pharmacies’: Without a pharmacy, Darrington residents are forced to drive miles

Darrington residents travel 50+ miles for prescriptions

Imagine you?re really sick, diagnosed with COVID or the flu. You need to fill a prescription fast, but to get it, you?ve got to drive at least an hour roundtrip. That?s the reality now for residents of Darrington after the town lost its only pharmacy.

DARRINGTON, Wash. - Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin reports residents are struggling to get prescriptions filled in a timely manner.

He tells FOX 13 News, the problem has gone from bad to worse in the months since the only pharmacy in town closed. According to Rankin, before it shuttered, the pharmacy served at least 50% of people in town.

"We’ve had a pharmacy here my entire life," said Rankin. "It was just a focal point for our community, young and old."

Mail order is an option, but now those in urgent need of care have to drive roughly 30 miles to Arlington to pick up pills. That is a round trip journey of roughly an hour.

"That’s a big barrier for a lot of our community," said Rankin. "Our median income is about $33,000 a year, so you’re looking at people who may not have the means of putting gas in their car to make that roundtrip."

Rankin is working alongside the only doctor living in town, Gary Schillhammer.

"Getting medicines here in a timely fashion for those people when it’s an emergency situation has been difficult," said Schillhammer.

Snohomish County Health