Town's pharmacy crisis leaves resident 'head butting a stone wall to shock myself out of pain'

Pontardawe has a pharmacy crisis. Elderly residents are going without their medication, people are queuing for up to an hour and a half to collect their prescriptions and many people catch the bus from nearby towns only to find that Lloyd and Well pharmacies are closed due to staff shortages or that their prescriptions are not ready.

So when a local pharmacist proposed to open a third independent pharmacy in Pontardawe in 2020 and called town mayor and former county councillor Linet Purcell for advice she was overjoyed. Unfortunately not much has changed since that initial phone call with the hopeful pharmacist.

"I nearly fell of my chair with excitement because this is what we need. To go from there which was about three years ago to where we are now is indescribably frustrating," said the mayor. You can read more stories about Neath here.