The Cork pharmacist going the extra mile for her patients


Behind the perspex screen and friendly service, pharmacist Rose Murphy and her team are busy collecting postcodes and telephone numbers to deliver prescriptions to their cocooning clients.
âWeâre delivering to the over-70s,â says Rose. âWe had a home delivery service anyway, but itâs now become manic.
âWe have a significant volume of patients who are over 70, so weâre phoning them to make sure that they have access to their medication.
âWe deliver Monday to Saturday. Work takes longer with all the deliveries, we have up to 100 prescriptions to deliver. But really, weâre just doing what we do anyway.â
âIn the pharmacy profession, weâre meeting the same people every month,â she says. âWe get to know people very well, which is nice. Thereâs a local community feel here, even though weâre in the centre of the city.
âWeâd never want it to be a big place where we didnât know patients.
âThereâs a strong sense of community. Thatâs always been important to me, but this crisis has shown just how important community really is.â
Rose says the coronavirus crisis is âcompletely unprecedentedâ.
âIâve never seen anything like this,â she says.
No one from our generation has. Itâs World War One material.
Despite facing potential exposure to the virus daily through work, Rose says that she and her team take all the precautions they can to stay safe.
Her husband erected a perspex screen at the pharmacy entrance so everyone is served from the door, keeping both staff and customers safer.
âWe had planned to put up some screening long before the shutdown,â says Rose. âWe foresaw the situation developing in this way.
âMy husband put up the screening at the pharmacy door. Itâs a really good design, because we donât have to wear masks behind the screen, which I think is nicer for customers and itâs easier for us â weâre not fidgeting with the mask and touching our faces.
âWe wear gloves if weâre handling money, and wash our hands well.
âWeâll leave it up until weâre totally sure that the pandemic has passed. Itâs contributing to the health of both staff and customers.â
Staff have been divided into two groups, and the hours have changed from five days a week to three days of 12-hour shifts so that those in work can be stationed far apart physically.
âThe hours are longer and you are tired, but itâs working,â says Rose.
She adds that, despite the dangers of working through the pandemic, she is not personally concerned about catching Covid-19.
âYouâre constantly at risk of catching the virus, but when youâre in the medical profession, getting sick doesnât really enter your mind,â she says.
âYou know how to protect yourself. Weâre boosting our Vitamin D levels, weâre big hand-washers, and I put my clothes in the washing machine as soon as I get home and jump into the shower.
âFor 30-odd years of work Iâve never worried about contracting an illness. My immunity is probably boosted by having contact with diseases all the time.â