Six months ago, amid the chaos of ex-tropical Cyclone Alfred, a Chemist Discount Centre opened it’s doors in Doolandella without celebration or fanfare.
The store’s owner, Dalwin ‘Will’ Wilson, said family fun day celebrations the chemist will hold at the store from 10am to 5pm on 12 October will make up for the time lost.
“All the funding that we put aside for the grand opening, we will put back into the community on the family fun day,” Mr Wilson said.
Chemist Discount Centre is based in Sydney and Melbourne, but has expanded to Queensland, where they now have six operational pharmacies.
“We’ve got another pharmacy coming up near Ipswich in the next three months, and there will be another three or four built in Queensland in the next year,” Mr Wilson said.
Mr Wilson said that the Chemist Discount Centre was unique in its operations and that most discount pharmacy models don’t offer a full range of services like immunisation.
“We are more of a community-based pharmacy, which means we’re very involved with the local community,” Mr Wilson said.
“When I started in the industry as an intern pharmacist, customers used to come to the pharmacy to have a chat with the pharmacist, not because they wanted to buy any product, but just to get an opinion.
“The way we run our business now is very similar to that period of time; we’re not a pharmacy where people come only to buy a product and leave.”
Staff at the chemist can speak five languages other than English, including Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, and Vietnamese.
“Doolandella is a unique community, we have got people from different parts of the world,” Mr Wilson said.
“When we were hiring, we tried to make sure we had people who could speak multiple languages to ensure we could deliver the right services to our customers.”
On the family fun day, Mr Wilson said there would be a petting zoo, a face painting stall run by a local artist based in Durack, three local food trucks, and major in-store discounts.
