Winton, Australia

Peter Evert, Pharmacist

Area of work: Community pharmacist in a small outback town.

Background:

I run a small pharmacy in a town of 1000 people. There are two permanent staff including myself. Like any small outback town, it consists of station owners, shearers, ringers, jackaroos, teachers, publicans, council and railway workers, butcher, baker, public servants, professional game shooters of kangaroos and feral pigs, miners of opal - Australia's gemstone, cattle truck drivers, a doctor, and of course a pharmacy.

Within the township there is various government health support such as an ambulance, hospital with one Doctor, domicilary nurse and some visiting specialists. If a patient requires a non-urgent specialist it is usually a 1200km round trip to the nearest Doctor with limited government assistance.

Please describe your daily work routine

The Winton Pharmacy operates on a five and a half day week. It is not uncommon to do call out prescriptions as well. Winton has a population of 1000 people in town and a total of 1600 in the shire. The small population allows for close monitoring of patients medications. You could say we have been doing Home Medication Reviews for some time now.

What are the greatest difficulties you encounter in your work environment?

95% of Australians live along the coastline. 5% live inland in the great outback. Winton is part of this 5%, so the tryanny of distance is one of our greatest difficulties. Winton is an isolated town, with the nearest pharmacy 200km away. The shire is 50000 square km with 2000km of council roads of which only 200km is sealed with bitumen. In the wet season outlying stations can be cut off from civilisation for up to 8 weeks. The surrounding stations rely on the Royal Flying Doctors Service (R.F.D.S) for emergency medical assistance, if they are unable to make it to town. Our furthest mail run is almost a 1000km round trip.

The RFDS is a unique service to the outback that offers emergency medical support to isolated areas via air transport.

As Winton does not have any medical specialist the RFDS provides emergency transport for the townsfolk also.

What is the greatest motivation in your profession?

I have owned this pharmacy for 43 years. Providing a personal healthcare service to the community has been very rewarding for me.

If you could have one wish granted, what would it be?

Due to our isolation, encouraging pharmacists to work in the bush can prove difficult. This makes continuing education, conferences and of course holidays very difficult. Thus, I wish we could have more pharmaceutical support.