Dixie Murphy

Dixie Murphy has spent her Thursdays for the last five years volunteering at the Volunteers In Medicine prescription drug dispensary, working with the clinic’s volunteer doctors and nurses on behalf of patients in need of inexpensive medications.

Murphy started her volunteer work when her friend, William Nimo, encouraged her to help him out at the Volunteers in Medicine clinic in downtown Jacksonville. Murphy and Nimo are licensed pharmacists.

Murphy says her role at the clinic is to help patients acquire the drugs they need at the least cost – sometimes from the limited dispensary at the clinic, other times by calling around to find the most inexpensive medication available for the patient.

For example, she tells patients who need glucose meters where they can find them at the lowest price. Another example: she recently consulted with a doctor to prescribe a statin drug that has been donated to the clinic’s dispensary which she can give a patient free of charge.

The need for the clinic’s services to working low-income people is growing, she said, as the cost of medical care continues to climb. Murphy saw the demand for clinic services decline when the Affordable Care Act first became law, but in recent years that demand has risen again, and she sees no end in sight.

Not only has Murphy donated her time, she also directed an $8,000 donation to the clinic from her mother’s foundation, the Elizabeth E. Murphy Foundation. Elizabeth Murphy died in 2005.

“I was very pleased to be able to stand in my mother’s shoes,” she said, “and direct that donation from the family foundation.”