Port Dalhousie Pharmacy
2 lakeshore Rd L2N 7E4 Saint Catharines, ON, Canada

Stay safe and healthy everyone

When a patient walks in with this telling you Thanks for being here for us through that craziness. We thank all of you for your support.

Stay safe and healthy everyone

Are you looking for thermometer ? We have some in stock right now.

Retail pharmacies do not shut down. Retail pharmacists are the most accessible & frequently visited healthcare professionals. Many of us will be utilized to either help with testing patients or administering a vaccine if & when it becomes available. We all know that we will be exposed to the coronavirus, if we haven’t already. Many of us are caregivers to our children or other family members, so we are committed to protecting ourselves & our patients & minimizing the spread o...f this virus. That being said, we need YOUR help: PLEASE be patient with the pharmacy personnel. We are trying our best to take care of each & every patient as efficiently as possible. Your health & safety are our #1 priority. We have initiated cleaning & disinfecting protocols that will take staff’s time to perform. This, in addition to increased prescription volume, may increase waiting times for prescriptions. DO NOT come into the pharmacy if you are sick. Send a family member or friend inside, or use prescription delivery if offered by your pharmacy. When waiting for prescriptions to be filled, try not to linger in crowded waiting areas. Sign up for text messaging alerts, if available, so that you know when your prescription is ready. While waiting in line to pick up your prescriptions, please try to leave space between you & the person in front of you. Utilize the technology offered by your pharmacy, such as their app, website, or automated phone system, to order refills. Sign up for automatic refills if offered by your pharmacy. Try to order refills a few days early to give your pharmacy sufficient time to fill them. Do not call the pharmacy for non-essential matters or questions. Try to use credit cards or mobile pay apps to decrease the amount of cash handled by yourself & the pharmacy personnel. Wash your hands or sanitize them before and after touching anything at the pharmacy. I wouldn't do it if I didn't deeply care about helping people and keeping people safe. We ARE going to be there for you when everything else shuts down. We DO put our health and wellbeing after yours. But we're still people, human. So be kind. Be patient. And don't put us at any more unnecessary risk than is already being asked of us. Sincerely, Your community pharmacist and staff

Common mistakes about Hydroxychloroquine/Chloroquine - Plaquenil 1- FDA approved it already for COVID-19 Wrong! The president made a mistake saying that or ...confused being approved for clinical trial vs approved for clinical indication! It’s been approved since 1955 for other indications. It’s an anti-parasitic drug with strong immune suppressant effects. To our knowledge works via anti-dendritic effects and perhaps some medium PH changes. 2- Studies have proven that it can cure COVID-19 Wrong! It may have some helpful anti-inflammatory benefit and other benefit (not clear on mechanism yet with thoughts about facilitating immunity or changing medium PH to become less favorable for viral survival) that was suggested by Italian and French providers and one Chinese study. The limited pilot small studies showed limited benefit in combination with Azithromycin. One limited study was done in 6 asymptomatic, 22 mild URI and 8 lower respiratory tract infection cases. The study was not randomized, it was open label, and compared results to public reports with no control group. Interestingly the drug was rejected by authors of the Marseille study for fear of its interactions and side effects putting other antiviral agents ahead of it in the researchers opinion. 3- The drug has not been used and once we start using it the pandemic will stop. Wrong! The drug has been used for the last 13-14 days in Italy and other areas, again for its anti-inflammatory effects and immune suppressant benefit in severe immune responses. We use it with other medicines like steroids, antivirals, antibiotics , ...etc. because that’s how we treat ARDS in general. The usage is off-label use and until a better scientific study shows clear benefit for the drug we will not be able to tell if it has true benefit or not. 4- The drug can be used for prevention or to protect you from having the infection. Wrong! It may however knock out your immunity and leave you susceptible for having more serious infections! The drug can cause serious cardiac side effects among other known hazards! Never use it without proper doctor advise!!! 5- The drug was tested in severe respiratory decompensation cases and cases showed recovery. Wrong! It wasn’t studied in those cases in randomized fashion yet, and it was given to many of those cases (off-label) and mortality rates are still 3-8% 6- The drug is 100% safe! Wrong, no drug is! - The studies conducted/soon to be conducted will give more answers about the use of the drug and until then, no one from the media or administration should talk about it and pushes people to use it or not to use it. False hopes are as bad as desperation. The drug didn’t stop the pandemic and it’s unlikely to have a drug that is soon capable of doing what we can do by social distancing and washing hands!!! So please stay home if you can. Don’t let some political motives, or commercial bias give false hope before we have more solid scientific information. God bless you all! Opinion is my own, Boshra Agban Louka, MD

When a patient walks in with this telling you Thanks for being here for us through that craziness. We thank all of you for your support.