{"id":302670,"date":"2019-07-03T06:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T20:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=302670"},"modified":"2019-07-03T06:00:49","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T20:00:49","slug":"phi-pharmacy-giving-away-free-vitamins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/phi-pharmacy-giving-away-free-vitamins\/","title":{"rendered":"PHI Pharmacy giving away free vitamins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The PHI Pharmacy inside the Commonwealth Health Center. (Mark Rabago)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the song goes, nothing in the world is free. But don\u2019t tell that to PHI Pharmacy, which is giving away complimentary children\u2019s vitamins.<\/p>\n

PHI Pharmacy general manager Joshua Wise said the free vitamins program is open for children 2-12 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of a healthy start for kids. It doesn\u2019t matter if he or she is a U.S. citizen or not. Doesn\u2019t matter about social status. We make sure all children between 2-12 get vitamins,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What allows PHI Pharmacy to give away the vitamins for free is that the company has also gotten a special contract from a supplier where it gets the vitamins at a far cheaper rate.<\/p>\n

The way it goes, Wise said, is that parents or guardians get a punch card and can come once a month at PHI Pharmacy to get free vitamins for each child within that age range. <\/p>\n

\"\"
PHI Pharmacy general manager Joshua Wise literally is giving away children\u2019s vitamins. (Mark Rabago)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe started that a little over a year ago. We just register each child in our system and give parents a punch card. We don\u2019t bother with paperwork for proof of child,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

PHI Pharmacy\u2019s free children\u2019s vitamins program has become such a hit that some have even bought the same vitamins to send or bring to relatives and friends overseas, according to Wise.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Some people going off-island or wanting to send to family in other countries will [usually] buy extra. It\u2019s only 85 cents per bottle of 30 [tablets or capsules]. Some people buy extra by the cases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

PHI Pharmacy\u2019s Facebook advertisement seems to suggest that the children vitamins being given away are children\u2019s multivitamin and children\u2019s multimineral supplements under the Good Neighbor Pharmacy brand, which is an American retailers\u2019 cooperative network of more than 4,500 independently owned and operated pharmacies.<\/p>\n

If giving away free vitamins for children 2-12 wasn\u2019t enough, PHI Pharmacy is also looking at making prenatal vitamins available also for a song.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to get the same program available for prenatal vitamins but [we are] still negotiating pricing,\u201d said Wise.<\/p>\n

PHI Pharmacy has two locations on Saipan\u2014one inside the Commonwealth Health Center on Lower Navy Hill and the other at the Joeten Dandan commercial building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the song goes, nothing in the world is free. But don\u2019t tell that to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":302739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}