Fort Erie pharmacy wins Pharmacy of the Year award

As Fort Erie deals with fewer urgent care hours, a one local pharmacy is being recognized for treating minor ailments so local doctors can save appointments for sicker patients.

Whole Health Pharmacy Partners, based in Markham, presented the Bertie Street store its Bobby Lau Pharmacy of the Year Award at its national recent conference. Harsit Patel, president and co-owner of Whole Health Pharmacy Fort Erie, said he believes the store beat out more than 300 locations because it took part in almost every patient-care program Whole Health offers.

“We really wanted to provide more than just dispensing,” said Patel.

Dr. Michael Csanadi, a family doctor in the same building, asked Patel if the pharmacy could treat patients with minor ailments from his Thursday after-hours clinic, which can only take about 20 patients a night.

The pharmacy now stays open until 7 p.m. on Thursdays, two hours past its usual closing time, to treat clinic patients whose minor ailments don’t require a doctor.

“We take the ones that are easy and we can assess and prescribe for, and we let (Dr. Csanadi) know what we did,” said Patel.

Patel spent 17 years as an emergency department pharmacist at Hamilton General Hospital. Both of Patel’s co-owners work as hospital pharmacists in cancer care.

Whole Health’s staff pharmacist can also text the owners for consultation whenever a patient’s case gets complicated.

Macklin Murray was two when his mother, Brianna Murray, brought him into the Bertie Street pharmacy with pain and growths that earlier hospital visits had dismissed, Patel said. The owners urged the family to take Macklin to McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, where doctors diagnosed a rare form of lymphoma.

“This was certainly one that should not have waited,” said Patel.

Macklin has been cancer-free since March 2024, Brianna Murray told Fort Erie Radio last year.

The owners’ cancer-care experience has brought more cancer patients to the pharmacy over the past year, Patel said.

Staff have also helped low-income seniors apply for Ontario’s Trillium Drug Program, which can lower the deductibles they pay for prescriptions.

Patel talked horse racing during one recent home delivery to a patient who once cared for horses at the Fort Erie Race Track and, Patel said, likely has no one else to chat with.

“It’s those five minutes you spend with a patient that I think mean more than the delivery,” said Patel.

Starting this week, Whole Health Pharmacy Fort Erie will also stay open late on Wednesdays for minor-ailment patients from Dr. Pinhas Ephrat’s after-hours clinic, as staffing allows.

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