MacNeil & Dodd

Patrick MacNeil started in the pharmacy business in 1979 with a part-time job as a delivery person in Brantford. The pharmacist taught Patrick the business, even allowing him to fill the prescriptions and hand them out “which is unheard of these days but helped me along in the business.” Patrick graduated from the University of Toronto as a pharmacist in 1993. In 1995, he was contacted by Bill Todd, another pharmacist, to see if he would like to go into partnership to open a pharmacy in Ayr.

“I was young and eager to try so we opened on June 14, 1995. Ayr had a spotty record of successful pharmacies, and one of my colleagues quipped we should call the store ‘Ayr today and gone tomorrow’. We started in a 440 square-foot storefront in the Watson Mall, and 23 years later, we have a 2500 square-foot, free-standing building. We’re still going strong,” says Patrick.

On a typical workday, Patrick is hard at work a couple of hours before the store opens, retrieving messages left overnight, and preparing the dosettes the pharmacy fills for many clients. He typically puts in 11-hour days, but “never feels tired” because he enjoys the work and sees the difference he can make in people’s lives.

Patrick feels the biggest misconception people have about the pharmacy industry has to do with fee structure.

“Some people don’t understand why we charge a dispensing fee. We get asked questions in person or by phone and we gladly provide the answers. Pharmacists don’t just fill prescriptions. In many cases, we are the first to be called when someone needs advice—everything from what to put on a burn to whether a certain drug is safe” he explains. Pharmacological advances have been changing rapidly, and Patrick spends a great deal of time educating himself about new medications so he can be up to speed before they become popular. “We are the first health professionals many call for advice, so it is important to keep up with the medications and conditions and how to handle them,” he says.

Like any profession, there are downsides. Patrick admits it can be tough to compete with larger pharmacies who have greater buying power and larger inventory, although being small means he can order items that larger stores won’t bother stocking. The regulatory nature of prescription pricing means that small pharmacies are at a disadvantage. “Many brand name drugs cost me more to purchase than the larger stores, but we are obligated to sell it at the same price. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the government,”

Patrick explains. He’s had customers move to a larger pharmacy, only to return because of the personal service MacNeil & Dodd provides. “I have customers calling me at home weekly for advice or prescriptions. Many times, on holidays and weekends, I’ve opened the store for an urgent or not-so-urgent customer. We pride ourselves on service and I don’t think we can be beaten.”

Supporting the local community is very important to Patrick, and he feels his modest upbringing shaped his values. His family was not affluent, and after his father left when Patrick was in his early teens, his mother worked hard to raise her five children on her own. She instilled in her children a belief that they were “way better off than most” and to learn to appreciate what they had. Now, as a business owner, Patrick is always looking for ways to give to those less fortunate, and supports many local organizations with both financial and prize contributions. He is the 2017 recipient of the David Borges Award for community support in Cambridge/North Dumfries. In 2010 he donated monies to support the building of a local community centre, and a room in the arena was named the MacNeil-Hall Hall in his honour. “It felt a bit like bragging to have a hall named after me. I don’t like talking about myself. The funny part about the name is my wife’s maiden name is Hall and we wanted to show the play on words. Not everyone gets it, but we think it’s funny,” he says.