[Ohio-Talk] Walgreens treatment of patients who are blind

[Kelsey Nicolay]

Hello all,
I thought I would share my most recent encounter with Walgreens pharmacy as it highlights the discrimination blind people still face when trying to get healthcare services. I scheduled an appointment online to get my annual flu shot at Walgreens. The process was fairly straightforward and the online consent form was fairly accessible, so I thought the appointment was going to be an easy process. However, when I arrived at the pharmacy, that's when the trouble began. walgreens t€xted a link to my phone to use to check in when I arrived at the pharmacy. I attempted to use the link, but quickly discovered that the way the website was formatted that braille screen input would not work and trying to type in my date of birth using the onscreen keyboard wasn't working very well either, so I decided to just walk up to the pharmacy counter for assistance. ′My mom went with me to my appointment and noticed that there was a sign next to the window saying if you need help please go to the pharmacy consulting window which we did′. The person at the window said I had to scan the QR code to check in. I explained that I am blind and cannot do this, but he refused to provide any help and insisted that I HAD to scan the code in order to get checked  in for my vaccine. My mom ended up doing it for me on her phone and I did eventually get checked in. then pharmacist said we'll let you know when we're ready twhichis fine except there was no one else at the pharmacy other than people picking up prescriptions at the drive through where someone else was taking care of those customers, but no one else getting vaccines. the same pharmacist who tried to deny me service because I couldn't scan a QR code ended up being the one giving me my vaccine. Before I left, I made sure to tell him again that their check in process is not accessible to the blind and he said yeah we know, we've tried complaining to corporate and they said oh well, that's how we are doing it now. He encraged me to contact Walgreens with my experience in hopes that they might be more open to listen to someone who is blind and had to go through their inaccessible process. I emailed Walgreens yesterday with my experience and would like to encourage anyone who has had simi£ar experiences getting vaccines at Walgreens to contact them as w€ll. The more noise we make about this, the more likely it is they might be willing to listen and make their process accessible. I went to Walgreens two years ago and had no problem at all getting service, but yesterday was horrible. I almost walked out and had my mom drive me across the street to Discount Drug Mart ′wh she had to go to anyway′, but decided I was not going to let Walgreens th~k they won by trying to deny me service that I had already scheduled an appointment for. incidentally, when I went to Meijer for my COVID shot back in September, they got me in and out of there super quick and were very accommodating ′I did have a paper form to fill out, but they let me sit in an area of the pharmacy that had less people around so I could have more privacy as I dictated my answers whaile my mom filled out the form′. I guess I should have just gotten both vaccines done at Meijer when I went, but oh well. Although Meijer's appointment scheduling website isn't great as far as accessibility, their service at the pharmacy is pretty good. 
ent from Kelsey Nicolay’s iPhone