Understanding Hypertension: A Silent Killer and Its Impact on Indigenous Health

Placement site overview:

The Chempro Pharmacy is located in the heart of Gold Coast, which geographically is the sixth largest city in Australia. It is located in the state of Queensland, which is the second largest state in Australia. The pharmacy is located in the Coombabah suburb, and infront of the pharmacy there are two medical centres and a few shopping centers. Moreover, the pharmacy is also close to a dense mixed-use neighbourhood and is situated in a high-traffic area.

The total staff at the Chempro Pharmacy is around 6 people, who efficiently manage the daily operations and facilitate the patients. These people work during the morning and evening shifts to ensure the facilitation and provision of services to the consumers from 8-6pm. The team at the placement includes 2 clinical pharmacists specialised in different health domains, 1 pharmacy manager, 1 medicine distributor, 1 clinical coordinators, 1 IT/lab technicians. The pharmacy ensures that the team members work in alternate shifts, so they don't get burdened and can perform their best.

The patient demographics of this community pharmacy include old men aged around 45 to 80 years and women aged around 35 to 77 years. The average age ratio of children aged between ages 1 to 17 years is 18% while the ratio of adults aged between ages 18 to 30-33 years is around 53 %. Further information that has been extracted from the Gold Coast Primary Health Network (2020), demonstrates that the majority of the non-native population in Gold Coast includes 7.9% people from New Zealand, 5.2% from England, 1.2 % from South Africa and China, which also adds to the patient demographics of this community pharmacy