Paul Bowman Does His Part To Serve The General Public
FREDERICTON – It’s surreal times for Paul Bowman, the owner of independent pharmacy Bowman’s Pharmasave on 1111 Regent St., as he continues to go to work while most people are staying home to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
“As a pharmacist and healthcare professional, you sign up to do your part and help members of the public. But this is certainly something that we’ve never come across before,” he said.
He has concerns in the back of his mind about the novel coronavirus possibly infecting him and his staff – one full-time pharmacy assistant and one part-timer. But they have to continue serving patients, he said.
“A lot of people that have [the virus] might…not have symptoms whatsoever. So, of course, it’s a concern that we may get infected or get sick at some point down the line, but you can’t really think about that,” he said. “You just put all the best measures that you can in place and then continue with your day-to-day and serve your community in the best way you can.”
Bowman says it’s important that his pharmacy remains open because he has clients with different health conditions that require front-shop assistance.
“It’s not likely for us to shut down and just focus on delivering prescriptions, because we are often the first point of contact people might have with the healthcare system in terms of helping to deal with minor ailments or complaints that people might have,” he said. “That’s still a part of our day-to-day. So, it’s important that we maintain that continuity of service as well.”
Like most other consumer-facing essential businesses that remain open, Bowman’s Pharmasave have taken steps to follow public health recommendations on social distancing.
They’ve installed a plexiglass guard at the consultation area and the cash register, as well as floor decals to show people where to stand to maintain social distance. They’re “doing everything” to clean and sanitize the store as much as possible.
The pharmacy also offers curbside pick-up and delivery services and recently restricted the number of customers in-store to only three.
“We are a small store, so it’s very important for anyone who does enter maintain space from other clients,” said Bowman. “It’s 800 square feet, so it doesn’t take lots of people of being in here before we see potential issues of overcrowding.”
For the most part, people seemed to be taking public health recommendations more seriously and traffic has slowed down significantly, he said.
But in the first two to three weeks of March, as restrictions were just rolling out, there was a “definite” increase in people looking for supplies and medicine.
“We were busier than we normally would be in this time of year,” he said.
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During those early weeks, Bowman and his staff had to face a wave of customers looking for things that were low on supply because demand spiked suddenly due to panic buying.
“That was certainly frustration on my part as people were looking for thermometers and gloves, and hand sanitizers, and aloe vera gels and alcohol swabs,” he said. “While I understand why, they were increasing their risk, and ours, by going through every store that was open for these items that no one really had.”
Things have since slowed down to “business as usual” with significantly less foot traffic.
Bowman’s now concerned about many fellow small business owners in the region who’s had to close their business or face high uncertainty about their future.
“My heart goes out to them. We’re lucky in a lot of respects that I can still do my job,” he said.
“As painful as this is for everyone, the more we heed the advice of public health and social distance and stay inside, the quicker this spread of the virus will be over, and the sooner – however long that may be – we can return to new normal, whatever the new normal looks like.”
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