Kaikohe’s young pharmacist does the mahi for better health in Northland

Jilly Alexander’s pharmacy career may not have taken her far from her home in Northland, but it has taken her to great heights.

Last month, Ms Alexander (Ngāpuhi) won the Sir Graeme Douglas Young primary healthcare pharmacist of the year award at the New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards | He Tohu Mauri Ora.

Ms Alexander grew up in Ōkaihau – a small rural town not far from Kaikohe, where she has worked at Unichem Orrs Pharmacy in Kaikohe since she graduated as a pharmacist in 2014.

Ms Alexander has officially been Mrs Williams since she married in 2019, but she likes to use her birth name for everything relating to pharmacy.

As a child, Ms Alexander remembers the small pharmacy in Ōkaihau and being quite taken by a wooden rocking horse that was displayed there.

After the Ōkaihau pharmacy closed, this horse somehow made its way to Unichem Orrs Pharmacy in Kaikohe, so when she started there it was waiting for her. Today, the wooden horse, with its better years behind it, is looked after by one of the staff members who has young children.

At school, Ms Alexander loved performing arts and the sciences and dreamed of one day becoming a journalist. But this changed after a trip to the University of Auckland where she saw a presentation promoting the university’s pharmacy course.

She was attracted to pharmacy because it combined science and interacting with people, two things she enjoys.

Back home, Ms Alexander spent a few days with Kate Thurston, the former owner of Unichem Orrs Pharmacy in Kaikohe, to see what it was all about, and that convinced her to enrol at the Auckland School of Pharmacy.

While studying, Ms Alexander worked at the pharmacy during her holidays and Ms Thurston agreed to become her preceptor for her internship. Unfortunately, health issues meant Ms Thurston had to sell the pharmacy before this happened, but the new owner Alex Graham was happy to honour the agreement.

It was always Ms Alexander’s plan to work in her home town, so when she graduated she had a job waiting for her.

During her time at the pharmacy, Ms Alexander has come up with many innovations to help her community, and is always pushing for the rest of the team to continue upskilling themselves and get certified to provide new services.

She made a booklet specific to Northland’s Stop Gout programme to educate patients about gout, allopurinol and the programme itself, and came up with the idea of patient-specific “counselling labels” which prompt pharmacists to discuss health issues relevant to each patient whenever they are in the store.

Ms Alexander is aware of many colleagues who are not so fortunate and are left to pay for their own training and recertification by their employers.

“That creates quite a lot of negativity, especially with costs [of recertification] ramping up.”

As a Māori pharmacist, Ms Alexander had the opportunity to join Ngā Kaitiaki o te Puna Rongoā – the Māori Pharmacists’ Association during her studies and she is now on its executive committee.

She says the group has been hugely supportive of her, especially in the three years since she joined the committee.

As well as attending the annual MPA hui, Ms Alexander has represented the group at Waitangi Day celebrations supporting Te Hau Ora Ō Ngāpuhi runanga group’s stall.

This gave her the chance to meet patients in a more casual setting. On one occasion this had life-changing results for a patient who she convinced to start treatment for high blood pressure after detecting it in a health check.

She is also a new mother and has returned to work only recently after maternity leave.

Back on deck, Ms Alexander says her pharmacy has recently won funding for medicines use reviews and she is excited to start offering this service, particularly targeting Māori patients.

She is also excited to begin dispensing Maviret which can cure hepatitis C.

On winning the award, Ms Alexander says she is extremely humbled to have been nominated and been chosen out of some amazing finalists. She thanks Douglas Pharma­ceuticals for sponsoring the award, and Jo Hikaka and Lisa Kramer for nominating her.