Melanie Moses at Blooms The Chemist

How long have you owned Blooms The Chemist Orange?

I've owned this pharmacy for nearly six years now.

Being a seven-day a week pharmacy must keep you busy?

Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday are the only days we're not open. So, it keeps me very busy, but it is very rewarding.

What services do you offer for customers?

Besides prescriptions we offer a lot of health services, so things like blood pressure checking, cholesterol screening, iron testing, blood glucose testing and monitoring, and this month we have asthma screening on promotion as well. We also do free medication packing for customers and free home delivery Monday to Friday as well.

It has already been a terrible flu season, do you offer vaccinations?

Yes, we have been quite busy this season with flu vaccinations, I know some pharmacies and medical services are running out of stock, but we still have some left.

Are there any areas you would say you specialise in?

We specialise in sleep apnoea services here, which is a point of difference with other pharmacies. We can test people to see if they have sleep apnoea. We sell machines and parts for machines and can also provide consultations. We sell a lot of home health aids, so wheelchairs, walkers those kinds of things and we also specialise in compression stockings.

What is it you find rewarding about being a pharmacist?

I love helping our customers maximise their health, that is what we really enjoy here. We just recently won a customer service awards for that so that was really good recognition of all the extra work the team put in.

We have a lot of loyal customers and we believe it’s really important to build that relationship so our customers have someone who understands their medical history and can be a familiar face. They can come in with a problem and have someone warm and friendly who knows them and can help them out.