Quinn's Pharmacy

My wife Anne and I bought the shop from Frank O’ Donnell MPSI in 1992, when it was known as Coen’s Pharmacy. We had 2 employees, and over the next few years this expanded to 8. In 1995, not long after extensive renovations, we were Flooded! The record rainfall at Christmas that year left our premises under water for 3 weeks, and many locals suffered extensive losses as nature reclaimed many of the roads and fields in our area. Many people lost their homes, and we spent 24 hours a day in the pharmacy manning pumps to keep the rising water out…while feeding our 32 month old first son, EoghanAfter that, anything seemed easy!In 1998/99 I became President of the Irish Pharmaceutical union, then went on to be part of the E.U. working group on complementary medicines. Refitted again in 2006 the shop has developed into “the information Pharmacy” where our broadband access and Healthpoint information centre give immediate up to date information to patients.Pharmacy will move towards a more important role in medicines management, and will involve patient monitoring more than was done in the past. This will reduce queues in out-patients and in surgeries, freeing up time for those who need it most. The information we give will help patients stay healthy, as we become more concerned about prevention, and try to avoid treatment of illness.We find ourselves keeping up with older traditions too, in that we regularly “make up” or compound prescriptions for drugs or cream mixes not available in a pre-pack. These can be for especially low doses, like LDN, or for low dosage use in Children, or just in the case where a patient cannot swallow.Many medicines for various reasons have become unavailable in Ireland, and we either have to make them up, or obtain them from other, often very expensive sources. This is a real problem, and one that needs addressing in Ireland: after all we are now part of the E.U.!We hope to continue in our family business into the future, and eventually to give some other prospective owner a “leg-up” to starting their own business. The business is getting harder now, but the demand and place for small personal services like ours will remain even in the face of competition from large aggressive chain-store operations, because no-one does it like the independents.