CINCINNATI — Emmanuel Ayanjoke knew what his calling was at a young age, a pharmacist.
"I remember when I was about five or six years old in the pharmacy," Ayanjoke said. "People would come into the pharmacy to see my dad to ask about their health concerns."
He’s a third-generation pharmacist. His father owned a store in Nigeria, where pharmacists play a bigger role in health care.
"The same way you would go to see your physician right now or your nurse practitioner was the way you see your pharmacist, actually people prefer seeing their pharmacist before seeing anyone else," he said.
Now, Ayanjoke is bringing that type of care to Cincinnati. He opened his store, Altev Community Pharmacy, in December at the north tower of the Avondale Towne Center.
"There actually isn’t any pharmacy here in Avondale besides us," Ayanjoke said.
"A lot of businesses left. Walgreens left Avondale. This pharmacy is coming in to revitalize the community and provide a very important service," said Eric Kearney, CEO/President of the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce.
Kearney said he's not familiar with any other Black-owned pharmacies in the area. He said its central location makes it easily accessible.
"There are a lot of people who live in that area, but what can they walk to, what is close by, and what's a reasonable distance," he said.
That's one of the reasons why Ayanjoke opened his store in Avondale.
"I knew I wanted to own a pharmacy in a predominantly Black neighborhood primarily because I feel with all my experience as a pharmacist, most Black minorities didn’t have the care they deserved," he said.
He said one of the challenges doctors see in health care is distrust. Ayanjoke wants to bridge that gap with his pharmacy.
"When people get to speak with someone who looks like them, and knows them, and understands that challenges that they face it’s a different level of transparency, different level of conversations that they’re willing to have that they typically wouldn’t have if they didn’t see that kind of person," Ayanjoke said.
A WCPO I-Team report shows data from the Cincinnati Health Department shows Avondale is in the top five neighborhoods for the most life years lost. When it comes to diabetes deaths, Avondale leads the city in excess years of life lost.
RELATED | Data: These are the Cincy neighborhoods with the most life years lost
“Unfortunately, in African-American communities across the states we have much higher rate of diabetes, high rate of hypertension and those are the biggest killers in our community, and the way we want to address that is really spending time with patients," he said.
Ayanjoke said what makes him different is the time he spends with his patients. He always makes sure his patients understand what they are taking, why they are taking it, and how they should take it. Then he looks at other ways to improve their health.
"We are actually partnering with different manage care organizations here in Ohio that would actually allow us, paying us, to spend time with patients and help them, counsel them, when it comes both to their medications and also lifestyle choices that they need to make," Ayanjoke said. "We’re building a relationship with our patients and going a step further and making sure their medications are working right for them."
He accepts all Ohio Medicaid insurance plans and offers a free discount plan to reduce costs and co-pays. He also joined a franchise called Health Mart Independent Pharmacies, which helps him keep his prescriptions affordable.
"I am very confident that we are actually doing a better job of keeping the prices of prescriptions low [compared to chain pharmacies]," Ayanjoke said.
