dept of health rejected the compasion center aplicants all of them

After many delays and after reviewing 15 Compassion Center applications for 4 months, the Department shocked us by rejecting all 15 applications. Apparently, after all these months, the Department decided that some applicants submitted too many pages and disqualified them. We want to know exactly why each applicant was rejected and why they were not informed of and given a chance to correct any technical problems in their applications. The fact that more and more patients are suffering without medicine or putting themselves in harm's way by going to the illegal market did not play a role in the Department's decision. Apparently page count is more important than alleviating the suffering of patients.

More than half of the calls coming into the RIPAC office are from patients in need of medicine.

RIPAC is looking into pursuing legal action against the Department. In the meanwhile, please join us for a protest rally outside the Health Department this Monday at 12:30PM to show you care about the patients and let the Department of Health know that enough is enough. The Department is located at 3 Capitol Hill in Providence.

RIPAC needs your support now more than ever. Please mail a contribution to RIPAC as soon as possible at 145 Wayland Ave in Providence. You can also go to RIpatients.org and click on the donate button.

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JoAnne Leppanen
Executive Director
RI Patient Advocacy Coalition
145 Wayland Avenue
Providence, RI 02906
401-861-1601