‘We lost everything in the fire’: Rowlands branch reopens in portacabin
A Rowlands Pharmacy branch has reopened in a “temporary cabin” after the original premise was decimated in a fire, it has announced.
Just over a week after a North Wales Rowlands branch was ravaged by a fire causing “considerable damage”, it has reopened in a “temporary cabin”, the pharmacy last week (August 30) announced.
Just before 7:30 pm on August 21, four vehicles were mobilised to attend “an accidental fire” believed to have been caused “by an electrical fault”, North Wales Fire and Rescue Service told C+D.
Now, in a Facebook post made to patients on Friday, the Rhos on Sea pharmacy said it was “delighted” to share that is now “open”.
It added that it has “been able to re-open in [a] temporary cabin following [the] recent fire” and is “located immediately outside the damaged premises”.
“We lost everything in the fire so please bear with us while we re-order and re-stock” – “we only have limited medicines available at the moment so it may take a little longer to process your prescriptions,” the post said.
The pharmacy added that its “phone and broadband connections were also damaged and that is why it has taken longer for us to be up-and-running than we’d have liked”.
“Exactly the same”
Dispenser and healthcare partner at the neighbouring Deganwy branch Alex Jones – who has been helping out at the fire-hit branch - told C+D today (September 4) that opening hours are remaining “exactly the same as they were before – nine till half five, Monday to Friday, and then Saturday, nine till five o'clock”.
He said that patients attending the pharmacy to consume drugs while supervised “are going elsewhere…for security reasons”, but that “all the other services are still available”.
However, he told C+D that the temporary premise has not come without its challenges.
When patients attend the pharmacy for a “common ailment scheme [consultation] or sore throat test swab”, staff are having to close the entire portacabin “because there's no consultation room”, he added.
Jones told C+D that the branch is hoping to fully reopen “within the next three weeks or so”.
He added that he was grateful to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board because it was “really helpful in the whole situation” and thanked Deganwy branch, which has taken on an influx of patients since the fire.
Two fires in one day
Meanwhile on the same day as the fire at the Rowlands branch, a Stoke-on-Trent pharmacy was scorched by a suspected arson on its roof.
At the time, Staffordshire police told C+D that it was “appealing for information following a deliberate fire” at Grahams Pharmacy on Ford Green Road that it attended just after 3.15am on August 21.
The force said that “tarpaulin covering the roof of the building had caught on fire” but that “fire crews successfully extinguished the flames” and “no-one was injured”.
Speaking to C+D today, pharmacy dispenser and manager Sarah Owen said that the pharmacy team “pulled through” the chaos without closing the pharmacy for a prolonged period.
The fire “didn't actually enter the building, luckily, but we just had a lot of water damage from where the fire brigade had put the fire out,” she told C+D.
She added that on the morning of the fire, the pharmacy “closed just for an hour and a half” and “tidied [the premise] up”.
Owen told C+D that one patient “actually brought us some cakes and some juice and offered to help as well, but we were alright”.
“Everything’s running as normal,” she said.
Meanwhile in March, Liverpool’s Euro Chemist announced plans to unveil its “fresh and sparkly new” pharmacy one year after a fire left its premises “completely ruined”.
C+D reported in January last year that Euro Chemist, which has operated from Berry Street for over 40 years, had been devastated by an inferno that had left it with smoke and fire damage.
