Indigenous pharmacy dynamo win
The founder of a Kimberley pharmacy has written her own prescription by producing a tonic of success that has caught the eye of the business world.
Broome woman Hannah Mann was named First Among Equals at the annual 40Under40 awards earlier this month — the most prestigious honour at an evening recognising the most sensational feats by the State’s young business community.
The 37-year-old launched Kimberley Pharmacy Services 10 years ago in response to the barriers to health access indigenous people face across the region.
The business has three outlets based in Broome, Derby and Kununurra, but services are provided to people throughout the Kimberley, with a large emphasis on the specific needs of certain communities.
Ms Mann said she was very passionate about Aboriginal health, but never thought she would be on stage accepting an award of that calibre.
“I spent the first half of the awards night thinking I shouldn’t even be in the same room as the other nominees, let alone win the biggest award, so it is fair to say I was shocked,” she said.
“Since the business started, the goal has been to do remote pharmacy differently and it is a model that has worked tremendously so far. We collaborate with the community to work to find their actual needs and we acknowledge what those needs are and look after those specific requirements rather than trying to mould it into something else.”
Ms Mann lives in Broome, but travels remotely for a majority of the year and has 23 staff working for the company. She said anyone walking into a KPS store would not know the “breadth and depth” of the work that is done. “It is a real teamwork success story around three outlets that are geographically are not close together at all,” she said.
But it was not Ms Mann’s first time crossing the big stage, with KPS being awarded national pharmacy of the year in 2015.
She also sits as one of 12 members on the Pharmacy Board of Australia.
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