Dear CEO Mitesh Popat:

We ask the Venice Family Clinic reverse the decision to close the pharmacy and end drug counseling services at the Venice Family Clinic’s Colen Health Center. This decision imperils the Culver City community served by the clinic and is contrary to Venice Family Clinic’s mission "to provide quality primary health care to people in need."

Impacts of Closing the Pharmacy:

Many patients served by the clinic live in the local community and do not have cars. The closure of prescription services will be a hardship for those on foot. Additionally, the clinic currently provides critical services to the underinsured and ensures they can leave their appointments with vital medications. Contracting out such services to for profit companies will mean patients cannot leave their appointment with necessary and often life-saving medications and could doom patients to not obtaining their medications altogether.

The clinic also means to cut back on pharmacy staffing at its other main sites, which will further be a detriment to patients in other areas of West LA.

Impacts of Ending Drug Counseling Services:

Everyone is aware of the opioid pandemic devastating our communities. The Venice Family Clinic is on the front lines of coping with the crisis. Ending drug counseling services for people in need is catastrophic. It means people who walk to the clinic or live near the clinic will not have access to necessary services. There is no replacement for the one stop shop programming that the clinic provides covering patient’s medical, mental health, prescription and counseling needs. Cutting back on key services is going to put a hardship on many lives and will have dire consequences.

Closing the pharmacy and drug counseling services leaves the clinic delinquent in its responsibility to provide quality care to the patients so dependent on the Colen Health Center. The community is in critical need of maintaining these critical services. We, ask you to please maintain these services and keep access open to all that need them.