Pharmacy Daily | Pharmacies facing rising flood threat

DOZENS of pharmacies in South East Queensland and Northern NSW are facing significant disruption due to the ongoing flooding crisis.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia Queensland Branch Director, Gerard Benedet, told Pharmacy Daily that a number of stores were inundated over the weekend, with more likely to be hit in the coming days.

"We're still trying to piece it all together from the weekend," he said.

"Some [pharmacies] that survived the weekend are probably not going to survive high-tides today and tomorrow, with water continuing to come down the river... Ipswich was relatively okay yesterday, it won't be today."

Benedet said that two scenarios were playing out in pharmacies across the region, "you've either got shops inundated or you've got people whose staff are inundated at home".

"Some stores will probably be closed for the next few days because of staff issues, and for others it'll be a matter of flood waters in the premises," he said.

"There's definitely two members in the Toombul Shopping Centre [in Brisbane's North] whose shops are totally destroyed - they're underwater still, the north side really did cop it a lot harder than in 2011."

Benedet added that the floods highlighted the need for pharmacists to be able to provide medicines under Continued Dispensing measures going forward.

"A mechanism that was put in place for COVID is now going to be invaluable in this flood emergency, so that patients don't go without," he said.

"If you can ascertain that someone is on a medication and has been for some time, you're able to help them as opposed to trying to send them to a doctor's surgery that probably isn't open either."

Meanwhile, former Guild National President, Kos Sclavos, told Pharmacy Daily that with flood waters continuing to flow south, pharmacy owners on the Gold Coast and Northern NSW, need to prepare themselves.

With the profession shifting from paper-based systems to digital platforms since the 2011 floods, Sclavos stressed the need for stores to back-up their IT infrastructures.

He also urged owners to implement plans for nursing home patients, to check in on staff, to divert the store's phones to mobiles and get in touch with the Guild.