Pharmacy at Pukalani Terrace Foodland set to reopen after brief unanticipated closure

Confused and concerned pharmacy patients at the Pukalani Terrace Foodland are breathing a collective sigh of relief.

After closing suddenly for more than 24 hours Monday due to an apparent but unconfirmed by management positive COVID-19 test of a pharmacy employee, Pukalani Pharmacy was scheduled to reopen this afternoon, according to Sheryl Toda, senior director of marketing and corporation communications for Foodland.

“We were able to test and clear staff members of our Pharmacy team and Pukalani Pharmacy will open in approximately one hour,” Toda said Tuesday afternoon.

Toda said, “they will be contacting customers about their prescriptions and to remind them that we will be closed on Sunday (all Foodland stores will be closed this Sunday) as a thank you to employees.”

The reopening comes as good news to many who were awaiting prescription refills and who were in the dark about why the pharmacy closed suddenly.

According to Toda, the Pukalani Foodland store is the only one on Maui with a pharmacy which means there was no alternative about transferring prescriptions.

Maui and Hawaiʻi have seen a surge in COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks amid the rapid spread of the omicron variant.