'Pharmageddon' Could Close Pharmacies: What To Know In Illinois

ILLINOIS — Illinois residents who need to get their prescriptions filled could be in for a wait as hundreds of pharmacists across more than a dozen states participate in the “Pharmageddon” protest of working conditions at CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid drug stores.

Walgreens, which is based in Deerfield, announced in June that the corporation known as Walgreens Boots Alliance would shutter as many as 150 stores across the United States by the summer of 2024. In addition, the company announced that it would be closing its e-commerce shipping facility in Edwardsville, which would eliminate 400 jobs in addition to 504 jobs being cut at the corporate level.

The retailer did not announce which stores would be affected and how many Illinois locations could be affected by the move. In a statement issued Tuesday, Walgreens said that since the walkouts began this week, only three pharmacies of nearly 9,000 locations closed due to the disruption in service by pharmacists.

Protests at Walgreens and CVS corporate headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois, and Woonsocket, Rhode Island, respectively, were planned Wednesday.

A Walgreens spokesman told Patch on Wednesday afternoon that none of the three walkouts that took place were in Illinois and that all Walgreens pharmacies are operating normally on Wednesday.

CVS officials and Rite officials told the New York Times this week that they did not have any unusual activity reported by pharmacists walking off the job since Pharmageddon began on Monday.

Pharmacists in at least 15 states are participating in Pharmageddon sick-out, which is being organized on social media. The pharmacists aren’t asking for better pay, the sticking point in labor protests over the last several months.

Rather, they are asking employers to hire more pharmacy staff and eliminate policies encouraging them to work harder, which they say increases the likelihood of accidental harm to patients, NBC News reported.

The New York Times, citing a former Walgreen pharmacist involved in organizing protest efforts, reported 25 stores closed on Monday in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Texas, and Illinois. A Walgreens statement obtained by the outlet countered that source's assessment of the situation, saying that only three pharmacies closed and "no more than a handful of pharmacists" walked out.

American Pharmacists Association CEO Michael D. Hogue said in a statement Monday that the group stands with the striking pharmacists.

“For far too long, employers have made the situation worse than it needed to be,” he wrote, adding that quotas requiring pharmacists to fill a certain number of prescriptions or administer large numbers of vaccinations are destroying their relationships with patients.

“Supervisors who are not pharmacists do not understand the needs of care teams and make unreasonable demands on time-based productivity,” Hogue said.

Complaints about quotas and inadequate staffing have been common among pharmacists for years but worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pharmageddon sick-outs started attracting attention when pharmacists at about a dozen CVS pharmacies in the Kansas City, Missouri, area refused to come to work in mid-September.

In 2021, CVS announced that it would be closing more than 900 stores nationwide over the next three years, but like Walgreens, did not specify which regions of the country would be hit the hardest. In 2019, CVS closed seven Illinois locations.

In statements, spokespeople for both CVS and Walgreens told Reuters the drugstore companies are working to resolve the issues with pharmacists. CVS said it is in “continuous two-way dialogue” with pharmacy workers, while Walgreens said it is focusing on recruiting, retaining, and rewarding its pharmacy staff.