October 2021

Green Cross Health has invested in fledgling online pharmacy PillDrop to ensure a spot in the digital health market

Pharmacy is demonstrating its innovation and adaptability as it responds to the call to get New Zealanders vaccinated, writes Pharmaceutical Society president Professor Rhiannon Braund

Pharmacist Brendon McIntosh takes a quick break from his mahi to give us a sneak peek into his world as a mobile Māori pharmacist working across the South Island to improve access to medicines for whānau. He talks to Anna Lee

Alistair Whyte, of Unichem Chemist Shop in Palmerston North, looks at problems facing the sector and the deficiencies in the two independent reports on pharmacy

In the past year and a half, St Lukes Medical Pharmacy has lost most of its patients, prescriptions and retail sales, and has been forced to make six staff redundant as a result of a pop-up community-based testing centre.

Te Awamutu pharmacist Gemma Perry says this year’s Alert Level 4 lockdown feels different to its predecessors: with the highly contagious Delta variant now in the mix, the light at the end of the tunnel “feels a bit further away”.

Berrys Tararua Pharmacy and Berrys Health Centre overcame lockdown challenges last year to make up to 600 medication deliveries a week for free to their local community. 

During last year's Alert Level 4 lockdown Unichem Grey Lynn Pharmacy owner Sunil Kumar sometimes dreaded picking up the phone and being assailed by requests for flu vaccination.

When news of an Alert Level 4 lockdown broke, Chin Loh, co-owner of Dunedin’s Antidote chain, closed two of his eight pharmacies, Antidote Octagon and Antidote Central, for the duration of the pandemic, to ensure he had the staff to keep the others open in the event of a COVID exposure.

The Pharmacy Council has fielded a flood of applications for its recently announced fourth tranche of relief funding, writes Anna Lee