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WHITE SHIELD Community members gathered at the Satellite Clinic in White Shield Wednesday to participate in the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the clinic's new telepharmacy branch.
The White Shield Satellite Clinic is a sub-clinic of the Three Affiliated Tribes' Minne-Tohe Health Center west of New Town. Patients from the White Shield community have health care available to them primarily on Tuesday and Thursday each week, and their medications were usually filled in New Town and delivered to them later in the day or sometimes the following day by tribal Community Health representatives.
White Shield council representative Frank Whitecalfe cut the ribbon to officially open the telepharmacy operations at the field clinic with Stella Berquist, Minne-Tohe Health Center chief executive officer. Whitecalfe said the telepharmacy will alleviate the long waits and that in some instances, heart patients in White Shield had to wait days for critical medication.
Many residents from White Shield have traveled to the main clinic near New Town for their medical appointments, prescriptions and medication refills despite the 120-miles round-trip drive.
Donna Bieri, lead pharmacist for the Minne-Tohe Pharmacy Program, and Brenda Allard, a certified pharmacy technician, demonstrated the telepharmacy process following the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Allard will be the permanent pharmacy technician at White Shield.
"I am happy because we don't have to make the long trip to New Town for our medication it saves a lot of time for us here at White Shield," said Matt Marsette, a tribal elder who was the first community member to view the prescription process.
In addition to addressing the medical needs of the community, Whitecalfe said he has requested a full-time physician for the White Shield Satellite Clinic. With a full-time physician, the clinic will operate five days a week, contrast the two days a week when a doctor travels from the main clinic in New Town to attend to patient needs in White Shield. A physician is expected to start at the White Shield clinic in the near future.
Lovette Veach, with the Minne-Tohe Health Center, commended the tribal business council and all of the team members involved with the telepharmacy project for making it happen.
The next telepharmacy on Fort Berthold Reservation will open today at the Mandaree Satellite Clinic. Twin Buttes Satellite Clinic serves as the headquarters for the overall telepharmacy program on Fort Berthold and officially began operating in October.
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