Couple That Met At A Pharmacy Now Run Their Own In Moncton
MONCTON – Opening a new business during a pandemic could mean slow days. But Andrew and Erin Drover make the best of it at their new Harrisville Pharmacy, turning the aisles into a dancefloor in moments when there are no customers around.
They opened shop 10 days before Christmas last year, “not exactly the time when people are choosing to switch pharmacies,” Andrew says. “So there were some really quiet days with the first few weeks.”
But keeping it positive helps create the right environment in the pharmacy, Erin says.
“We want our pharmacy to be a warm and welcoming environment,” she said. “We want customers to know that they can come and talk to us, that we’re there for them and we’re there for each other.”
Their 10-year-old daughter has been “a champ,” Erin added, saying she’s been patient and even encouraging her parents on their new venture.
For the couple, this is a full-circle moment in their journey in the pharmaceutical sector. They had met and fallen in love while working at a pharmacy 18 years ago when Erin was a pharmacy assistant, and Andrew was a newly graduated pharmacist on his first job.
Now they own and operate Harrisville Pharmacy, an independent operation under the banner group Whole Health Pharmacy Partners. The group provides some operational support, and some help managing vendor relations, among other things.
“We wanted to be independent, where it was ours, and we could do what we felt was the right thing. But we did want some support, and we wanted people to be there to help us if we needed,” Andrew said.
He said opening during a pandemic meant they had to restrict the number of people who can be in the building. That delays the growth of the pharmacy, Andrew says, but it also allows him and Erin to think of what services they want to offer.
“Our vision is to be all-encompassing. So we have a pharmacy, but we’re not just dispensing prescriptions as you had in a typical pharmacy,” Andrew said.
Filling prescriptions is the “cornerstone” of the pharmacy, he said, but pharmacists can do more, including administering flu shots and vaccines, as well as assessing, diagnosing, and treating minor ailments. That’s exactly what Andrew did with a patient who called him on the phone for health advice. The patient could not come in because she was waiting for a Covid-19 test at the time.
“If she had to rely on going to a physician like an after-hours clinic or emergency room, that would have been a lot more difficult for her,” he said, adding he looks forward to the day that he’d be able to help administer Covid-19 vaccines.
Their pharmacy also offers home health and wellness products. Erin also plans to host ostomy and wound care clinics with the help of nurses, and a baby-weighing station for new parents.
“We want to be able to help people of any age,” said Andrew. “We have things like crutches if you have an older child, a teenager who breaks their leg, all the way up to the elderly needing things that help them with their daily living. We have specialized eating utensils, bathroom safety equipment, and everything in between.”
The idea to run their own pharmacy came after Andrew lost his operations job with Shoppers Drug Mart early last year due to a restructuring. The couple set up a business where Andrew would fill-in at pharmacies that needed a pharmacist. He did that for a few months but realized that’s not what he wanted to do in the long run.
“So, using my experience and expertise, not only as a pharmacist, but in operations and operating business, and Erin’s expertise in home healthcare, we were like, ‘why don’t we take this lead and open up a pharmacy?'” he said.
It so happened that there was an available space at Harrisville Complex, and owner Henri LeBlanc had envisioned a pharmacy in the building. LeBlanc, a dentist, decided to develop the Moncton east building when his practice outgrew his previous office. He says the number of patients has grown about three-fold compared to his old office since he opened Harrisville Complex.
“We’re seeing a lot of new patients in the office and we are seeing people from different cultures and different areas of not just Canada but the world coming to the office. So, that’s great,” he said.
The complex, which opened in spring 2019, also includes LeBlanc’s dentistry practice, a physiotherapist and a nutritionist. At its first phase of development, the building spans 11,000 square feet of space. LeBlanc is planning two more phases of development, with the next one set to grow the building by another 7,000 square feet.
“I’d imagined the complex to be a hub for professionals or where people from different fields could cooperate to see patients and treat them in the different fields that they need so that the local community wouldn’t have to go too far,” LeBlanc said.
Initially, he envisioned primarily health and wellness professionals. But as the development grows, LeBlanc says he’s looking for services that would meet the needs of the community.
“Our goal is to continue to bring in more health professionals or professionals that will complement each other and just work as one unit,” he said.
The Drovers work with the other health professionals in the building, making sure to carry the products and services needed by their clients. Andrew says having a family physician share the building in the future would be an ideal addition.
Knowing how much LeBlanc’s practice has grown made the Drovers optimistic about their own pharmacy offering a much-needed service in the growing east end of Moncton. It’s still too soon to see how much demand they’d get, though there’s no other pharmacy within about four kilometers radius, they said.
“We’re hoping that the environment that we created, our personalities and our expertise will draw people in and feel like they can trust us, and come see us for their healthcare,” Erin said.