Druggist credits his staff for Health Center honor

LYNN – It’s 1 p.m. on a Monday afternoon and David Dumouchel is calmly standing at the center of a storm.Five of his employees scurry around filling prescriptions and ringing up orders for customers while his wife, Jennifer, handles other business. In the middle of it all, Dumouchel is talking on the telephone; unfazed by the pace of activity.”People don’t come in because of me. They come in because my staff works their butts off.”That’s only partly true. Thanks to an 8-year-old partnership between Lynn Community Health Center and Dumouchel’s Eaton Apothecary, patients seeing doctors at LCHC cross Union Street following their appointments and fill prescriptions at Eaton.LCHC Executive Director Lori Abrams Berry said the collaborative proves that pharmacies and health centers can work together to reduce medical “free care” costs borne by taxpayers and hospitals.Without access to health center care or low cost medications, Berry’s patients and Dumouchel’s customers would seek out high-cost emergency room treatment.”That development has made a huge difference for our patients. Dave is really an unsung hero,” Berry said.LCHC’s board of directors will honor Dumouchel at its April 4 Health In Bloom fund-raising evening at the Hawthorne Hotel.The dinner and auction will raise money to support Center programs including its refugee and maternal health initiatives.Dumouchel has been working in pharmacies since the age of 10.His parents and siblings ran a string of Boston pharmacies that they expanded in 1986 with the acquisition of five Eaton Druggist stores.Dumouchel and his brother, Mark, closed and reorganized stores in the ensuring years to stay competitive in the changing health care business. The family business eventually grew into eight stores – five in Boston and one each in Peabody, Salem and Lynn.The partnership between Eaton and the Health Center represents a unique business relationship. Dumouchel holds two licenses for Eaton’s Union Street store: One allowing him to dispense medication to customers with private insurance and another allowing him to dispense prescription drugs purchased at low cost by LCHC for its patients.The overlap between the private-pay and publicly funded care gives Dumouchel a vantage point for viewing the changing health insurance landscape.”There are so many spectrums. It seems everyone in the middle is between a rock and a hard place.”He is working with LCHC to open a new Market Square store later this month or in early April.Berry said the Center’s partnership with Dumouchel “is the most important program we ever implemented in Lynn.” Dumouchel has his own perspective on their mutual success.”I just work here.”