Gwidt Pharmacy conducts business in new way

WITTENBERG — Gwidt Pharmacy is open and serving customers with precautions to keep both staff and customers safe from COVID-19.

By closing the store but keeping the drive-up window open for business, pharmacist Shane Resch is hoping to keep exposure to the virus to a minimum.

Resch noted that they have only ever totally closed once and that was a couple of years ago when there was a gas line problem and the area had to be evacuated. Resch plans to keep normal business hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Business as usual now consists of people calling in their prescriptions ahead of time and picking up through the drive-up window. Besides Resch there is another full time and two part time pharmacists on staff to answer any questions.

If other over the counter products or gift items are needed, they can be requested as well. Any order that is too large to fit through the window will be set outside the door for customers to pick up after the staff are back inside. If mobility is an issue the staff are able to deliver to the car.

Resch is grateful for the friends who have volunteered to make help make deliveries to homebound customers. So far he’s been able to do free deliveries within a 15-mile radius to people who are quarantined or worried about exposure.

“I’m more concerned about our response to it than the virus,” said Resch.

He noted that people in general are a little more nervous than usual. People are very accepting of the situation and seem to be willing to adapt to changes in their routine, which is most likely due to small-town living and a Midwest attitude of common sense, according to Resch.

One way of giving back to the community is to provide hand sanitizer, and Resch will give away 4 ounces to anyone who stops by, ideally with an empty container. Resch said that normally the Food and Drug Administration governs the production of hand sanitizer, and you can’t make it without permission.

Resch noted that, since the FDA has loosened that restriction, he’s been making it using the formulation from the World Health Organization. He’s been making four-gallon batches at a time.

Resch wants to make sure service professionals get the hand sanitizer and recently donated a gallon to the Wittenberg Area Fire and Ambulance. He made sure a police officer who stopped by left with a gallon to share with fellow officers.

“The whole reason I got into this career was to try to serve my hometown,” said Resch, who had originally worked in product development as a biochemist in Illinois.